How Does a Small Business Get Away With This?

Recently I called a local small business with a question about my account. I was told that the person in charge of billing was out until the next day and that it was best if I call back then.

I offered to leave my message on the person's voicemail to which the receptionist flatly told me "we don't use voicemail."

As a consultant to small businesses, it was hard for me to resist the urge to find out why.

"Why is that?" I asked curiously.

"We find it impersonal. And we just don't use it."

Her frankness floored me. I just couldn't fathom how a small business in today's environment could be so shortsighted.

I understand the fact that voicemails can be impersonal. Sure, we all would rather talk to a live person. But if the appropriate person is not available, why make things more difficult for your customer? Now the burden is on me to chase down the person I need.

Things must be going swimmingly at this business if they expect customers to chase them. What a luxury!

I couldn't hide my disappointment with the receptionist. I wasn't rude, but I pressed for more information.

"You really don't use voicemail?" I asked.

"No, we don't." the receptionist stated.

"Well, you may not want to use it, but your customers might." I responded.

I broke the awkward pause with, "so thanks for your help. I will try back tomorrow."

I hung up incredulous. What business can really afford to make it more difficult for their customers?

Business basics: make it easy to do business with you. This maybe one of the easiest and most successful ways to add value and it should be part of your Marketing DNA.

Move your business to the next level by ensuring your customers don't have to chase you.

Then again, if your business can afford to make life more difficult for your customers, maybe the next level is not for you.

4 Ways to Put Your Marketing on Cruise Control

The last thing you want to do is market your business passively. Right?

Wrong.

Passive marketing is the key to move your business to the next level.

Passive marketing is marketing derived from an activity in which you do not materially participate. Word-of-mouth, referrals, recommendations and repeat business are all examples of passive marketing. Passive marketing is thus marketing on cruise control.

So how do you achieve cruise control?

Here are four ways:

1) Gather and Publish Testimonials: testimonials are very powerful. They build credibility and brand awareness. Ask a handful of your best customers for a brief testimonial. Take the best ones and put them on your website, in your blog, on your brochures, etc.

2) Incent Referrals and Recommendations: a realtor client of mine offers a 25% referral fee to anyone that refers business her way. 25% of a $5,000 commission is extremely attractive. Needless to say, she has many people doing some of her marketing for her.

3) Refer and Recommend Other Businesses: you have to give to get, right? The Golden Chain of Referrals is extremely powerful. Refer your friends and customers to other non-competing businesses and watch those same businesses fill your sales funnel. A leads group, a networking group or a business association is a great place to do this.

4) Create and Use a Customer Retention System: repeat business is the most important component of passive marketing. New customers are always more expensive to find than existing customers. So for each customer interaction, make sure you have a method to follow up with that person. The easiest thing to do is to capture contact information and mail that contact regularly. Try SendOutCards for some great personalization. Or go big and invest in a customer resource management software to really put things on cruise control.

In all, passive marketing is about filling your sales funnel with as little effort as possible.

Nevertheless, don't think that passive marketing is easy. Quite the contrary.

Achieving passive marketing requires much time and energy. Passive marketing is not autopilot. It's cruise control, so you still need to steer the course and be aware of what's going on.

In the end, passive marketing will move your business to the next level more efficiently and more effectively than active marketing. When nurtured properly, the 3 R's (referrals, recommendations, repeat business) can generate amazing returns on your marketing investment.

Best Marketing ROI: Passive Marketing

Passive income is income derived from an activity in which you do not materially participate. Collecting rent or earning dividends are examples of passive income.

Active income, on the other hand, is income earned with blood, sweat and tears.

Robert Kiyosaki popularizes the concept of passive income in his Rich Dad/Poor Dad Series when he illustrates that the key to personal wealth building is to leverage passive income. Active income, Kiyosaki states, is the trap to keep you in the rat race.

Let’s apply this same concept to marketing.

Passive marketing is marketing derived from an activity in which you do not materially participate. Word-of-mouth, referrals, recommendations and repeat business are all examples of passive marketing.

Active marketing, on the other hand, is marketing earned with blood, sweat and tears.

Think about your business. Do you generate more revenue from active marketing or passive marketing? Are you successfully leveraging passive marketing? How can you generate more passive marketing?

There’s no easy answer and Kiyosaki would probably agree: you need a certain amount of activity to generate the return on the passivity. It takes lots of blood, sweat and tears to reach the point at which your income chases you instead of you chasing it.

But if you start to think in terms of passive marketing, you start to see its power.

Move your business to the next level by focusing on how to achieve more passive marketing. Concentrate your Marketing DNA on generating repeat business, testimonials, referrals, recommendations, customer retention and word-of-mouth.

After all, what someone says about your brand is always more powerful than what you say.

Absolute #1 Way to Increase Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is easily attained. Nowadays, it doesn't take much to get your name out there.

Just ask the parents of the Balloon Boy.

But Balloon Boy's time has come and gone. The original buzz around the controversy has lost its momentum. We will see some follow up news about this family because their actions were so remarkable, but interest will wane because people feel duped.

Marketing via controversy is not a long term strategy.

The best way to increase brand awareness over time is to increasingly supply value. Value is the fuel for the brand awareness machine.

Add value--per your Marketing DNA--and move your business to the next level.

Sure, you can increase brand awareness with a publicity stunt, a controversial idea or some other audience-grabbing event. But if there is no substance beyond the initial exploit, then awareness will fade faster than it was built.

The graph is an illustration that strong brand awareness is built by increasing levels of value. Per the small curvature, you can reduce value and still increase brand awareness. But this is just a blip, just like the Balloon Boy.

In order to build a strong brand, you need to increasingly provide value without any blips.

For most small businesses, brand awareness depends on referrals, recommendations and repeat business. Value is the key to unlock the flood gates of referrals, recommendations and repeat business.

So host a tasting event, have a customer appreciation week, give informative (i.e. not salesy) presentations, offer an add-on service for free or otherwise create some additional value for your product or service.

Adding value will build your brand and move your business to the next level.

It's Not What You Do; It's What You Do With It

Marketing is not what you do. It’s what you do with it.

Time after time I have seen small businesses fail in their marketing efforts because they simply “do” marketing and they don’t “do anything with it.”

Successful Marketing DNA requires more than just marketing alone. Successful Marketing DNA requires taking that next step and doing something with your marketing.

As you plan your next marketing initiative, think beyond the marketing and determine what you are going to do with it. Here are some ideas to get you started:

What you do: publish a print ad

What you do with it:
• Lead generation: “Call for more details”
• Invite participation: “Come to our FREE tasting”
• Encourage response: “Mention this ad and take 10% off your next order”

What you do: e-mail marketing

What you do with it:
• Send out informative topics to encourage readers to always open your content
• Provide valuable information in each email so that responders forward your email to others
• Build a community around your database by mentioning and referring your contacts to other businesses

What you do: build a Facebook page

What you do with it:
• Build a following by providing links and information that directly benefits your fans
• Engage in discussions and dialogue to encourage participation amongst fans

What you do: mail a postcard

What you do with it:
• Commit to at least four direct mail touch points with the same audience: one postcard does nothing
• Incent response with a simple yet compelling offer
• Test two versions of the same card and track responses to determine optimal messages

What you do: sponsor an event

What you do with it:
• Have enough free “takeaways” for everyone: examples include pencils, key chains, product samples, coupons, etc.
• Make your presence known with huge signage and other display items that will make your name standout
• Donate products or services to event coordinators to use in a raffle or something else

I could certainly go on, but I think the idea is clear.

It’s not about doing marketing. It’s about doing something with your marketing. If you want to move your business to the next level, then be sure you do something more with your marketing.

The Only 5 Seconds That Matter

Researchers suggest that the majority of purchases are impulse buys—purchases made in less than five seconds.

While this makes perfect sense in a retail setting, I don't think it explains buyer behavior with respect to services, big ticket items or long term contracts. Most people tend to ruse a bit longer over a decision like that than they would, say, over a pack of gum.

But the five second rule still applies.

You see, regardless of the setting, a marketer has less than five seconds to make an impression. With so many marketing messages orbiting our daily lives, consumers have only a fraction of time to respond to any single message.

For this reason, the idea behind successful marketing is to build positive brand associations with a consumer, even for only five seconds at a time. After handful of five-second positive associations, the consumer's opinion is shaped. This opinion would lead to the ultimate five-second interaction: the decision to buy.

Five seconds. That's all it takes.

So what does this mean for the small business? How can you take advantage of this five-second rule and move your business to the next level?

Simple: with every marketing piece, idea and collateral, take the 5-second Test. The 5-second Test will determine if your marketing message will resonate during the only five seconds that matter.

Start with your marketing message. If you can communicate one and only one thing, what would that be?

Now design your marketing communication around that message. Email, print ad, sign, social media post, etc. The medium doesn’t matter; just stick with one message.

Once you’re ready to execute the marketing, take a glance at your piece. Give yourself five seconds: can you walk away from that marketing communication in five seconds or less and understand the meaning you wish to convey? Try the test with others. It usually helps to get a second, third or even fourth opinion.

Five seconds is not a lot of time, but it is the difference between successful and unsuccessful marketing. It truly is the only five seconds that matter.

5 Ways to Get Your Marketing Message EVERYWHERE

Unless your Starbuck’s or McDonald’s, you’ll have a hard time getting your message everywhere. These guys have the deep pockets necessary to invest in massive marketing campaigns.

Most small businesses do not have deep pockets, particularly in today’s environment.

Nevertheless, even a small business can create the perception that its message is everywhere. Perception is the key. You don’t need your message everywhere; you need the perception that your message is everywhere.

Here are five ways to shape the perception that your message is everywhere:

1) Narrow Your Focus: Remember the 80/20 Rule? 80% of your business will come from 20% of your customers. So narrow your focus to those 20%. Really dig into that segment and find out what they do, read or watch and get your message there. You don’t need to be everywhere for everybody. Just 20%.

2) Use Multiple Channels: this basic marketing strategy is an area where many small businesses fail. One ad in one newspaper is not enough. Only a certain segment of you market—and a shrinking one at that—reads the newspaper. Be sure you leverage a number of marketing channels. At a minimum, have a plan for at least four marketing channels. Choose from events, direct mail, print ads, the web, sponsorships, social media, relationship marketing or more. Select ones that your target market will hit.

3) Keep Your Message Clear and Consistent: the last thing you want is a confusing or convoluted message. Find one key message and repeat that same message across all channels. The more clear and consistent the message, the more pervasive it becomes. Repetition and consistency feed the perception that you are everywhere.

4) Leverage Technology: technology is an excellent way to do more with less. There are sophisticated web companies, like Acerno, that can set up banner ads that will actually follow web users from your site. Someone that visits your site will get a cookie that enables your banner ads to pop up on other sites on that visitor’s computer. This makes the visitor feel that you are everywhere, when in fact you are just following that one person.

5) Feed Your Word-of-Mouth: the ultimate goal for any marketing message is to have the message spread with as little investment as possible. This is the entire basis of viral marketing: the message spreads like a virus while the original agent does nothing. So feed the word-of-mouth. Get your message recipients to spread the word for you. Create some buzz and excitement that will get people to talk and communicate to each other about your message.

In order to move your business to the next level, you need to create the perception that your marketing message is everywhere.

Even the heavy hitters with million dollar marketing budgets can’t get everywhere. Yet with a couple of tricks like the ones mentioned above, their marketing message is pervasive.

So get pervasive, or at least create the perception that your message is pervasive.

Here is Your 2010 Marketing Plan

I know you’ve been procrastinating. You should have planned a 2010 Marketing Plan, but you keep putting it off. You keep telling yourself you will get to it soon, but little things pop up and drag you down. Especially with holidays here.

So I want to help you out. I’ve got a skeleton of a plan here. You just need to fill in the blanks. Think of it as an extremely focused version of Madlibs.

So here goes:

2010 MARKETING PLAN FOR_____ (your business name) _____

Objective(s): _____(state one or two measurable objectives, like “Double the size of my email database” or “Increase sales by X%”)_____

Target Market: _____ (Who is your ideal paying customer? What are they like?) _____

Initiatives:

1) First Initiative:

• Marketing Channel: _____ (Choose one channel like events, direct mail, advertising, signage, social media, etc.) _____


• Marketing Message: _____ (Based on this initiative, what one message do you want your target to understand?) _____


• Timing: _____ (When will you do this? For how long?) _____


• Intended Results: _____ (What do you hope to accomplish? How will you measure it?) _____


• Roles and Responsibilities: _____ (Identify who will do what components of this initiative. Do it yourself? Assign it to a team member? Hire a firm?) _____


• Estimated Cost: _____ (How much money?) _____

2) Second Initiative:

• Marketing Channel: _____ (Choose a different marketing channel) _____


• Marketing Message: _____ (Based on this initiative, what one message do you want your target to understand?) _____


• Timing: _____ (When will you do this? For how long?) _____


• Intended Results: _____ (What do you hope to accomplish? How will you measure it?) _____


• Roles and Responsibilities: _____ (Identify who will do what components of this initiative. Do it yourself? Assign it to a team member? Hire a firm?) _____


• Estimated Cost: _____ (How much money?) _____

3) Third, Fourth, Fifth, etc. Initiatives

• Repeat the above for as many initiatives as your resources can handle. This all depends on what you and your business can handle. By all means outline some more. However, if you are just doing this by yourself or if your resources are few, don’t do any more than five.

Not too complicated, right? Sure, we could dig into this even deeper and optimize this for your particular business. So just consider the above plan as your starting point. Now, fill in the blanks and strategize about your business and your marketing message.

I know you can do it. So get off your procrastinating bottom and get planning. Failing to plan is planning to fail!

As you move through 2010, you should be able to understand what is working and what is not. This will really take you to the next level because you will grasp where to best invest your marketing dollars.

Lastly, just a reminder that a good Marketing Plans is S.M.A.R.T. (Strategic, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound). If you really want to move your business to the next level, you need to get S.M.A.R.T. with your Marketing Plan.

So what are you waiting for? Your plan is ready to go. No more procrastinating and let’s get to that next level!