What a Marketer Must Continually Ask

The first activity I generally do when giving a marketing workshop—particularly if the emphasis is on sales—is to review the Buyer Decision-Making Model.

It’s crucial that business owners and salespeople clearly grasp the consumer thought process during purchase decisions. Getting into the brain of the consumer is the key to successful selling.

In order to do that, a marketer or a salesperson must understand the six steps every consumer takes when deciding to buy. Here is a brief summary of the Buyer Decision-Making Model and the six steps:

1) Awareness: the consumer must have some awareness of your product or service. Without awareness, nothing more will happen.
2) Interest: awareness is the first step, but the real push towards a purchase comes when there is interest.
3) Understanding: the consumer must clearly comprehend how the product or service can fulfill needs.
4) Attitude: after understanding the product or service, the consumer will develop a positive or a negative attitude towards the offering.
5) Purchase: purchasing is predicated on the previous four steps. Note that the first four steps may take seconds to complete, but a purchase decision may take more time.
6) Repeat Purchase: create so much satisfaction that the consumer returns to buy again, or they recommend your product or service to others (which in turn creates awareness, interest, etc.)

In which step does a marketer most influence the buyer?

Each and every step.

Thus, the most important question a marketer should continually ask is if their marketing message, copy and collateral drive the target audience towards purchase and repeat purchase.

Strategically, this means that a marketer must understand in which step their target currently resides. Without awareness, a marketer must get the word out. If there is interest, the marketer must create understanding and shape attitudes. Each message must target the audience appropriately to move buyers to the next level.

Understand how to move buyers through their decision-making process and you will understand how to best market your product or service. This understanding alone will move your business to the next level.

Memo To Those Marketing Via Controversy

If you use controversy to market your business, your business model is not sustainable.

Especially via social media.

We've seen you're tactics. Marketing via contoversy can take a number of forms: a tweet that incites anger, a derogatory blog against a respected practice, an email that gets under your skin or even a scam claiming everything else is a scam. These are just some examples.

For these type of marketing initiatives, one thing is clear: while controversy may increase short term awareness, it will ultimately prohibit long term business success.

In today's marketplace, the Long Tail is more important than the quick sale.

Add value. This will move your business to the next level and should be a part of your Marketing DNA.

The 3 Marketing Assets

In order to move your business to the next level, make sure that you leverage all three of your marketing assets.

Assets, by definition, generate revenue.

There are three marketing assets: product, service and brand.

If your business does not generate revenue from all three assets, it's time to create another revenue stream.

Service: if you primarily sell a service, find complimentary products to sell along with your service. They certainly don't have to be your own but you should find ones you feel comfortable recommending. Look around for a good wholesaler or distributor. You might find a very profitable situation.

Product: if you primarily sell a product, develop an accompanying service. Maintenance, warranties or insurance plans are popular among the big retailers. Info products are an excellent option for smaller businesses. Seminars and presentations add value and can also generate leads.

Brand: if you have both a product and service, think about how to create revenue from your brand. Licensing your product or service is the best way to do this. If licensing is out of the question, get creative. Small businesses might leverage their brand in exchange for leads or goodwill as opposed to revenue. This may not help the bottom line immediately, but a warm lead can turn into revenue.

It certainly takes some hard work to leverage all three marketing assets. Your Marketing DNA will be tested.

Nevertheless, move your business to the next level only when all three marketing assets are producing the highest return.

Question Your Customer Comments

Dare I suggest that you question what your customers say?

Absolutely.

Many small businesses utilize surveys, suggestion boxes, comment cards or other mechanisms to solicit customer feedback. These can be excellent forms to gather input, but too many business owners misinterpret the data.

First of all, there are rarely enough data to make a well-informed decision. Without significant sample sizes, a business owner might react to one comment that may not represent the whole.

Secondly, the interaction represents one snapshot of time. Just what one person was thinking at that one time.

Third, the population that is inclined to fill out a survey is either extremely satisfied or extremely dissatisfied. While their feedback can be useful, often times their comments do not offer constructive advice: satisfied people like business as usual and dissatisfied people simply need to vent.

Thus, the best way for a small business to handle customer feedback is to question it.

Engage in dialogue with your customers. Then listen.

If you have a feedback mechanism, like a comment card or a survey, provide a means to follow up so you can dig into the comments.

If you receive a compliment, find out more. What specifically was good? Why was it so good? Do others share your opinion? And the best question of all, why would you recommend our business to others?

If you receive a negative comment, dig for more information. Set your ego aside and ask deep, probing questions. What was so negative? Why was it negative? How could we make it better?

In either situation, the 5 Whys are a terrific way to really question customer comments. Asking why 5 times for every interaction will produce actionable results.

To take your feedback to the next level, utilize social media and other on-line platforms to engage with customers and encourage dialogue. Social media can enable a larger sample size, a more varied perspective of time and a broader opinion base than a survey.

Gather your own customer panel via ratings on websites, fan pages on Facebook or tweets with a particular hash tag. Use the question and answer pages on LinkedIn. You will truly converse with your customer base and you can continually demonstrate the value you provide. Best of all, social media is free.

Just make sure you question every and all comments. Deep questions and lots of listening.

This act alone will move your business to the next level and it should be part of your Marketing DNA.

3 Currencies of Marketing

"Slash your marketing budget" is one of my favorite recommendations to small business owners.

There are many ways to market your business that don't require significant financial resources. Here are four no cost marketing initiatives.

The key to these initiatives is the understanding that successful marketing is funded by three separate currencies: money, time and energy.

Money is obvious. It takes money to make money. It takes money to hire a marketing consultant, advertise and otherwise get your name out there.

But money alone does not make marketing successful. In fact, some of the most powerful messaging can be created without spending a lot of money.

For this reason, I recommend small business owners consider investing time and energy into their marketing. Allocating time and energy to a marketing challenge often times results in greater return on investment than money.

Take time, for example. I generally recommend that businesses dedicate at least 10% of all revenue to marketing initiatives. What if business owners spent 10% of their time on marketing? That's really only one hour a day for most.

A lot can be accomplished in one hour: post a blog, give a presentation, cold call, network, optimize other marketing communication or strategically plan your Marketing DNA.

But don't look at time as simply punching the marketing clock. Energy is as valuable as time when it comes to marketing investments. So dedicate energy as well as time.

Investing your energy will allow you to think through your marketing challenges and it will ensure that the time you allocate is well spent.

One great way to invest energy is to generate referrals for other businesses. The Golden Chain of Referrals should start with you, and this strategy generally requires much energy to know the businesses and know to whom to refer their services.

In all, marketing doesn't need to cost money. Time and energy are equally valuable currencies to move your business to the next level.

4 No Cost Marketing Initiatives

Looking for ways to market your business on a limited budget?

You're not alone. An informal poll of my clients confirmed that most are looking for ways to market their businesses on the cheap.

I support this strategy. In fact, I recommend slashing your marketing budget and filling your sales funnel without spending on advertising.

There are many marketing initiatives that do not require a major financial committment. A lot can be accomplished with both time and energy.

Here are four ways to market your business at no, or little, financial cost:

1) Teach: to borrow a phrase from Brian Clark of Copyblogger, "teaching sells." Showcase your product or service. Host a presentation, seminar, conference call or a webinar. And do it for free. Show people what you can do. Magical things happen when you showcase your skills. Your sales funnel will fill up for you as you generate brand awareness and develop credibility.

2) Network: nowadays, there are many ways to network. There are leads groups, business associations, social networks and more. Some groups may cost money but there are many groups that you can join for free, particularly on-line. The key to successful networking is to give more than you receive. Dedicate quality time and energy to the network and the referrals you receive will grow exponentially.

3) Blog: a good blog takes commitment, but it is an excellent way to add value to your marketing. Even if you do not have many followers, the act of posting weekly entries about your product or service will force you to better communicate your key marketing messages. It's also an outstanding way to advance your target market through the sale funnel. Leads and prospects learn more about your product or service through a blog and thus take a step closer to becoming a customer.

4) Partner: this doesn't mean take on a business partner. Rather, partner with a resource that could potentially refer you consistent business. For example, a real estate agent might partner with an executive recruiter. Or a loan officer could partner with a bankruptcy lawyer. Maybe a restaurant partners with an event planner. The list is endless but requires some creative thinking on the part of the business owner.

There are other initiatives that produce an excellent return for little investment. Search-engine optimization, affiliate programs and other ways to leverage the power of the internet are areas to explore if they make sense for your business model.

That said, the four suggestions above are an excellent way to move your business to the next level without a lot of money.

In all--as long as you dedicate time and energy--there are many effective ways to market your business for no cost.

Marketing Motivates Action

When preparing marketing communication, be sure you can answer this question: what action do you want to your audience to take when they receive your marketing communication?

It's a simple question, but too often small business owners miss the mark on their marketing pieces. They forget that each marketing communcation must motivate some action. Each sign, ad, e-mail, web page, presentation, blog post, tweet or other marketing message should push its intended audience to do something.

The easiest way to think about how to use marketing to motivate action is to remember the sales funnel: contacts become prospects, prospects become leads, leads become customers, customers become advocates.

Each marketing communication needs to move your target through the sales funnel.

Here is one simple example:

1) Simple branding--like logos, signage or letterhead--should create awareness and generate more contacts.

2) A website, for example, might convert contacts into prospects with valuable content.

3) Prospects become leads once they complete an opt-in form on your website, or otherwise give you their follow up information.

4) Leads convert into customers with some strong sales calls using scripts.

5) And finally, customers become advocates after their experience with your product or service encourages them to tell others.

One thing is common in each step: the marketing is set up to encourage action. Each marketing communication motivates action to the next step.

To move your business to the next level--and to move your target market through the sales funnel--be sure that your marketing motivates action.

So next time you have to create some marketing--no matter what marketing you choose--ask yourself: does this piece encourage action and movement through the sales funnel in the best way possible?

The answer to that question may have you rethink how you communicate your message and how you market your small business.

Social Media Demystified

Believe it or not, many small business owners—particularly in the off line world—are still confused about social media.

Perhaps the confusion is due to trepidation: many mom and pop shops fear technology and change. Or maybe the confusion is due to a lack of knowledge: many folks are still out there asking “what the heck is Twitter?”

Regardless of the reason, the confusion should stop here. Small business owners, take note as the following should clear everything up for you regarding social media:

Social media is nothing more than another marketing channel.

Simple enough, right?

As long as a business owner understands that social media is just another marketing channel, the confusion around social media and the uncertainty of its practicality should be completely demystified.

Take out the tweets, fan pages, diggs, stumbles, reddits, you tubes and other vernacular about social media and boil it down to its essence: social media is just another form of communication. Basically it is no more than an additional avenue for business owners to communicate the value that their product or service can provide.

In this light, we can even take another step towards social media enlightenment by asking one simple question: does your target market use social media?

If yes, then get plugged in, get tweeting, get a fan page, post a video or otherwise get to work communicating your message via social platforms. They are quick, easy and extremely inexpensive to implement.

If no, then do nothing. Why waste resources on communication channels that your market does not use?

Admittedly, there are fewer and fewer businesses that cannot benefit from a strong social media presence. Many are using the power of social media to move their business to the next level. The interactivity, the immediacy and the ability to leverage your message are all reasons to consider the use of social media.

But social media is no different than any other marketing: if you cannot hit your target, don’t waste your ammunition.

Stay Longer, Buy More

Shoppers that stay in your store longer will buy more. Nothing revolutionary here. It's one of the main conclusions and recommendations from Paco Underhill and his excellent book, Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping.

Mr. Underhill suggests that retail shops and stores invite their customers to stay longer. His ideas include: making the environment pleasant, placing children's items low so they can interact with the products and providing seating like an area for husbands to so their wives can browse longer.

Kind of like the beer commercial where the guys set up the tv in between the clothes racks so they can catch the game while the wife shops.

But Mr. Underhill's recommendations apply to the online world as well: keep your browsers and shoppers on your site or your blog for longer and they will buy more.

How do you do it?

First, provide valuable content. The more valuable your content on your site, the more time people will spend with your information and the more they will soak up your brand.

Second, if you have a blog, make sure that the links you add to your posts open a new window. It takes a bit of HTML coding, but it is not too difficult to do. For Blogger, I go to the "Edit HTML" tab and I add the following code to the end of each link: "target=_New". This ensures that a new browser window opens from a link and the reader won't get bumped off my blog, thus absorbing more of "me" and my message(s).

Third, get interactive. Browsers and consumers that can interact with your site by posting comments or providing ratings will engage your readers and have them spend more time with you.

Finally, give browsers a reason to come back or give them a reason to get more information from you. This means you will need to update your content frequently. You will also need to provide ways for prospects to subscribe to your newsletter and feeds or a widget so they can become a follower.

Mr. Underhill studied the off line world, but his recommendations apply to both on and off line: if prospects stay longer, they will buy more. And if your prospects spend more time with you and your message, you will move your business to the next level.