I just got back from vacation with the family and had a chance to slow down and a reflect a little. I realized that need to slow down and focus a little more on building up lead generation tactics that are working right now.

I think as business owners and entrepreneurs we have a tendency to let our ADD get ahold of us and jump from one tactic to the another.

What I started to realize is that I need to spend more time developing each marketing “tactic” before moving on to some of the others outlined in my marketing plan. I haven’t been building each “tactic” out long enough to really maximize the results.

Glad I realized the potential now…

When I coach others I see this often. They shotgun blast from marketing tactic to marketing tactic. When that doesn’t work they move on. In my case, I have some things working now and generating leads but I am not maximizing their full potential.

Time to regroup…

My advice is build your marketing system one brick at a time and make sure you have tested, tweaked, and built some measurable results before jumping off to the next “brick” in your marketing system. I know it’s hard at times, but guaranteed to maximize your results. More often than not the tactic won’t deliver the resulst you want right away. You are going to have to test and tweak. If you don’t, you aren’t building a system.

Here’s a quick exercise that I did on vacation that will help you:

1) Take out a sheet of paper and write down all of the “bricks” or marketing tactics you are leveraging right now.

2) Highlight one (1) tactic that is generating results for your business. Determine with one with 5-10 hours you could really take it to the next level.

3) Get er’ done. Spend the time on improving this one marketing tactic in your business this week.

4) Rinse and repeat. Take the next one on the list and work on that until you have improved the results.

This is a very simple exercise. I am already getting new ideas on how to focus in and improve on areas that are already working. The good news is I am not starting from scratch which is for sure leveraging my time.

If you have a tactic that isn’t working at all, you might want to re-assess the effort and determine the return on the investment of your time.

At a bare minimum, identify one key area and “amplify” it one brick at a time.

To Your Success,

Matt

Does the potential of marketing failure have you frozen? Are you so uncertain about getting results with your marketing that you don’t ever do anything?

I realized this week that this is a real problem that plagues small business owners. You get so uncertain about whether an investment is going to pay off, you never actually try anything.

If that’s the case, all you have is hope. That’s not a plan to grow a business, or survive in this “new economy”.

Let’s just get this out of the way right now. FAILURE IS GOING TO HAPPEN!

You are going to make investments in marketing that won’t pay off. I had a campaign recently that failed miserably. No doubt it sucked. The good news though is that I learned something in the process. Had I not tried in the first place, I would have never had the discovery of what actually did work to generate new leads for my business.

You don’t have to accept failure, but don’t avoid it. The key here is measuring your investment.

Here are three (3) quick marketing tips to beat the fear of marketing failure:

1) Clearly identify your target. What are their needs, wants, pains, and frustrations? How does your offer address those?

2) Create a clear call to action. Add a special offer with a deadline. Create a reason to act.

3) Measure your results. If you cannot measure your results, you are flying blind. Create a custom link on your website to track. Use a specific phone number for your offer to track how many calls were made for each specific campaign.

The bottom line here is getting really clear, executing, and measuring your results. Test and Tweak!

this isn’t about throwing a bunch of money at a marketing campaign. You can start small, measure your results, then go big. But most of all, expect failure will occur, just be ready to deal with it and move on.

To your success,

Matt

Which one are you? Do you know the difference?

Here is a quick quiz:

1) Do your marketing campaigns typically have one step?

2) Do you frequently move from one marketing tactic to another?

3) Do you frequently wonder why that email, postcard, or fax blast didn’t produce any results?

If so, you might be a promoter. There is a big difference between the two. Here’s why…

Your prospects are bombarded daily with marketing and advertising messages. Me too promotional sales and one shot pony campaigns don’t work, and they don’t generate results.

Educating your prospects, taking the long term view of cultivating a relationship and truly differentiating yourself is critical. Especially with social network and the ADD induced state most of your prospects find themselves in…

They can’t pay attention to the road while texting, let alone long enough to pay attention to your one time promotion…

It isn’t quite as easy building a true marketing strategy, but well worth the results.

You have a choice. Build a proven marketing system that works, or continue being a promoter wondering why you can’t generate more revenue for your small business.

Sometimes a little straight talk is called for…:)

To your success,

Matt

Do you know the worst number in business?

Did you say zero? Almost…

The worst number in business is the number 1. Here’s why…

If you are dependent on ONE source of leads for your business, you are already in trouble. I don’t care if it is referrals, pay per click (PPC), direct mail, or email marketing. Relying on a one source is dangerous, especially in this new economy.

Smart small business owners are realizing that the convergence of offline and online marketing is the WAY to build a marketing system to generate leads on a regular basis. More importantly, having the peace of mind that if they lose one lead or revenue source, they can keep trucking along.

Here’s how you can start moving your business in the right direction today:

1) Grab a piece of paper and write down all of the way leads and prospects come into your business today.

2) Highlight which of those sources produce the most results for you now. Ask yourself, “Does my business depend on one source for leads and new business?”. If so, move to step 3.

3) If you are in fact dependent on one referral partner, one lead source, or one tactic you need more sources. From the list you created, start outlining a list of more ways you could cost effectively generate leads for your business.

4) Create a plan. Now, grab that calendar and I want you to focus on building one lead generation tactic each month. If it takes 2 months, don’t worry about it. Just keep adding to your system, one layer at a time…

5) Pat yourself on the back. I know, it sounds corny but most business owners don’t get to step #2.

I guarantee if you take the five steps above, your business will be better off for it. More importantly, you will be generating more leads and business than ever before. As you know, it doesn’t happen overnight.

Through patience and persistence you will have a marketing system you can rely on, even in this economy.

To your success,

Matt

A few days ago, we went through how to start your local marketing research and how to better compete online.

As we discussed, your local marketing will continue to “suck” if you don’t use the right keywords.

In this post, I want to give you a sneaky little trick to pull a list of really juicy keywords right from your competitors websites.

After the last exercise, you should have a list of the competitors you are competing with online in your local area. (Here is the link to that post if you didn’t read it..http://www.marketfin.com/does-your-local-marketing-suck/ )

Re-cap, after the last effort you should have a list of all the websites fighting for eyeballs in your local search space.

Ok, time for a little local marketing espionage:

Step 1) Visit your competitors website in your favorite web browser

Step 2) In your web browser, Go to View | Page Source

Step 3) In the middle of all the crazy looking HTML programming, look for the text that says:

“<title>” and “<meta keyword=>”

Each of these will be followed by a list of keywords that your competitors are using. Yep, right there out in the open. Pay attention to how they are used.

DON’T just copy and paste these on your website. You can use these keywords to maximize your results quickly, especially if yours are blank.

Many small businesses have a blank title or keyword tags. At a minimum have your web developer add those local terms that make the most sense. Including your business name as well is always a good idea.

Repeat this step for the top competitors on your list and you will be well on your way to competing head to head in your local online marketing space. You can use this keyword list for optimizing your website, integrating into your online blog or website content, and Pay Per Click or Social Media campaigns.

As always, let me know if I can help!

Go Target, Attack, and Profit,

Matt

A little off the wall post today, but hey those are the best kind…

Watch this video as Malcolm Gladwell discusses differentiation. This has many applications for your small business.

Enjoy,

Matt

I recently read about and used a strategy so simple and effective I had to share it…

Quite honestly, it is so good I need to use it more myself and make it a habitual response to a question many small business owners get on a daily or weekly basis.

Especially those of us that are heavy networkers.

Here it is…How many times does someone ask, “How are you?”, or “How is business?”. Quite often I imagine…

How often to you (or I) respond with “Great!”, or “Good”? Too often…

So here’s the small tweak, the one sentence that I have found first hand will generate more leads for your business.

Instead of responding with a simple “Great”, say this:

“Business is very good, but I am always looking for more clients who need <insert your product or service here>…”

Then, have the cards ready or better yet a referral card for them to hand out.

Very simple, Extremely effective.

Let’s make this a habit together.

To your success and prosperity,

Matt

Are you short on leads? Do you need a system to create leads on auto-pilot for your business? Sure you do…

I have small business owners consistently ask me how to generate more leads for their business. While these tips aren’t a shortcut to a successful lead generation system, they will kick start your efforts…

Here are a few lead generation ideas for your business:

Tip #1 -  Ask More Questions -  Head right over to search.twitter.com and start searching for keywords related to your product or service. Find those conversations that are already occurring and send a Direct Message to the person and ask them how you can help. Ask them what they like and dislike about your particular industry, product, or service. Focus on adding value to them. I guarantee if you make this a habit you will grab a couple new clients in the process.

Tip #2 -  Yelp! For Help -  Customer service sites like yelp are making it possible to eaves drop on your customers.  Although we are more likely to say things on the net we would not say face to face does not mean your customers will say it on your site.  Companies like Yelp encourage customers to come to their websites and lay at the good, the bad and the ugly of other companies.  You may find it worth while to visit these sites to find customers that are satisfied with your company and reward them or find customers unsatisfied and try to make them happy again.  Trolling these sites should defiantly be part of your market strategy.

Tip #3 -  Be a Connector – If you want more leads for your business, give first. Here’s what you can do. Target one business in your network that you think you can promote to your list of clients or even prospects. Send an email or highlight that business as a business of the month. I guarantee if you do this once a month, you will start getting referral leads back into your business like never before.

Remember, if you create value for others first you will always win. I am testing a few strategies using this technique. They are already yielding some great results. More to come on my little experiment soon…

These are just a few quick tips I thought will help you if you are stuck.

As always, let me know if I can help you. My purpose is to help you and your business make more money faster with proven lead generation and marketing systems for your business.

With all of the buzz around Yelp these days, I thought I would give you a little marketing “trick” that will help your marketing copy and messaging.

The beauty of Yelp.com and other social search websites is that you can read real authentic reviews from prospects just like yours.

Why is that important you say?

Well, first off you can find out potentially what customers are saying about your competitors. Do a search and find out. If you can’t find your competitors, search lateral markets and get a sense of what consumers like and dislike. If you find that your competitor is getting beat up for always being late, guess what…You may want to focus on responsiveness and timeliness.

If you are a plumber, and the complaints are about leaving messes to clean up. Guess what…Again, focus on how your crew is the cleanest in town. By all means don’t just go out there saying you do stuff and don’t actually follow through. If you have to tweak your operations first, it may be required.

But you get my point…Here’s the real nugget.

What I want you to do is start searching using keywords from your industry. Open up a text editor on your computer and start reading, copying and pasting the comments and reviews from Yelp or other Social Search sites. After you have compiled a good set of information, (both good and bad reviews) you are ready to dive a little deeper.

Make a list of the things they like and dislike. If Bob the landscaper is always on time, note down timeliness. But more importantly, highlight the EXACT phrase they use to describe what they like or don’t like. This is the nugget.

When you are marketing to your suspects and prospects you need to use THEIR language to describe their problem and the solution. NOT your words. Yelp and other sites are perfect for this because you can literally use the words right out of their mouth to create your headlines, blog copy, direct mail, and even email campaigns.

With the power of Social Media, you have enough market research ammo in Yelp alone to keep you busy for a bit.

So get out there and…Target, Attack, and Profit!

Cheers,

Matt

If you haven’t read Part 1 of this post from yesterday STOP, don’t pass go read it now before you proceed…

RECAP:

1) We have a high level list of follow-up sequences organized by product, service, and target market.

2) We prioritized our list, and focused on ONE and only ONE follow-up sequence that will give us the most bang for the buck.

3) We started our automated marketing system by creating our specific content for each step in our follow sequence. Whether it was an email, post card, newsletter, or other tactic…You sat down and focused on the specific call to action, and you created a message that was consistent throughout the entire campaign.

Here’s where it gets fun…Now we get to leverage technology.

If you don’t have a CRM system right now, you need one. If you are using a CRM system now, you can bolt on any of the tools I am going to mention below and enhance your existing process. It will be a little more sticky as you will have data in two places (which isn’t recommended, but ultimately up to you).

Many of the new tools are built to handle your automated follow-up sequences that let you create a series of steps that can be executed in sequence.

Here’s an example of a simple campaign:

1) User visits your website

2) They sign up for your newsletter

3) Immediately they receive a welcome email with the first newsletter

4) The software sends a request to your printer or mail-house and sends them a thank you postcard

5) Monthly they now receive your newsletter

Now this is just one example, and you can get pretty sophisticated. As you can see, all of that happened without my intervention. It is CRITICAL that you are careful in the “blueprint” phase in creating a rock solid sequence. Remember this is going to happen “auto-magically”.

The power is infinite if you follow the process.

Here are a couple systems I am fond of:

Infusionsoft – A little more expensive but well worth it in the long run. It handles email, fax, voice broadcast, and direct mail.

Ace of Sales - A rising star in my book. It is only $20 per month and let’s you do email, eZine’s, direct mail, and postcards. Very simple, and powerful. Great for smaller businesses.

SendPepper – Very simple as well, handles email and postcards.

Remember, take your time and hammer out one sequence at a time. After you have a few sequences in place, loop back and start adding additional steps.

In many cases you will find that you can loop prospects and customers from one sequence to another, winding them through your maze of offers while you maximize your marketing dollars and increase your profits!

Hopefully you found this helpful! If I can help you, let me know…

Cheers,

Matt