If you’ve just started a new business and thought it would be easy to get sales immediately, then you are wrongly mistaken. The bottom line is that it takes hard work and sweat to get your business presence establishment.

Now while it is possible to get new customers from your location alone, you still have to implement a wide variety of marketing techniques that can bring in the customers also.

Business marketing isn’t easy at all. At least with internet marketing, advertising costs are lower, and there are ways that you can get prospects and leads for free. But in the world, you’re severely limited by how many free leads you can get. But luckily, there are some ways that you can go about getting more new customers onto your list for free.

One of those ways is with referrals. You can go about getting referrals in two ways. The first way is to provide superior customer service. Nothing beats being treated like royalty, and your customers will more than likely pick up on this if you treat them like kings and queens.

The other way to get referrals is to simply mail out to your customers with an offer – in exchange for a referral. Both techniques work well; you just have to pick the one that best suits your personality. And don’t think that getting referrals is easy. For both methods to work awesomely, you need a large customer database.

Why do you need a large customer database? Well, because marketing is a numbers game. You’re more than likely to see a response almost immediately if you have a large group of people to mail to. Getting a large customer database will take some time to develop, but it becomes a huge asset to your business once you have it.

Now I mentioned above that marketing isn’t easy. You have to be persistent with your marketing strategy and proceed with a sound follow-up campaign. Here’s another false rumor that plagues a lot of business owners:

Marketing takes time

The bottom line is that “getting rich quick” is non-existent in today’s world. The only time it may happen is if you come across a rare product that suits perfectly a starving market. Other than that, more than likely, you will have competitors offering the same product/service that you are offering.

You speed up the process of earning money in your business with advertising, but you need a killer marketing strategy for your advertising to work for you. For example, make sure that you don’t advertise your product or service in the ad itself. Instead, make the focus of your ad to generate a lead – and nothing else.

Once you generate a lead, follow up on them with your complete sales letter, and keep following up with them for a whole year. If they don’t buy after a year, then it’s safe to assume that they will more than likely not buy your product.

Marketing isn’t easy, and you shouldn’t think that it is. Hopefully, you will use this advice is to take your business to another level.

Tips for creating a business logo and developing your USP

Is your business “memorable”? What is it taking for prospects and customers to know your name and who you are? Now while I don’t recommend brand advertising, there’s a kind of marketing that you should be doing to promote your products and services. What is this form of marketing? The form of marketing that I am talking about is direct response marketing.

Direct response is all about generating money now. There’s no “waiting” to see if your ad will work, it either works now, or it doesn’t. And if you have a company logo, the same strategy can be applied to your logo. You have to put your logo under a scrutinizing test to make sure that it is effective.

Imagine that your logo is a billboard ad. You have to convey a message in only a matter of seconds to get prospects to respond to you. A good logo has the following things in common:

  • A headline
  • Contact information
  • A summary of how your business can help someone

If your logo can contain these three items, then there’s a good chance that it can work for you. So here’s another element that your advertising and marketing campaigns must have.

USP

Do you know what “USP” stands for? It’s called a unique selling proposition, and it answers the following question: “Why should I do business with you, instead of somebody else?” This is very important to ask yourself because without it, you’ll find yourself struggling to convince new prospects to do business with you.

If you can come up with a USP, then you have a lot of power in your hands. What is it about the business that will cause people to want to do business with you? Is it price? Location? Fast or free shipping? A dancing clown? (lol…) What is it about the business that will make prospects want to deal with you instead of another company? This is a question that you must answer.

Coming up with a USP is tough, but it’s necessary if you want to stay in business for the long term. Once you come up with your USP, it’s time to promote it in all of your marketing and advertising campaigns. You should even consider placing your USP in the headline of all your ads, letter, business cards, and stationary. You want people to view you as the obvious expert in your niche, which your USP will help you do.

With a USP, you can compete against anyone. So take the time to figure out (or develop) a USP for your business. Because if you can do so, people will instantly understand your marketing message and decide to come to you instead of somebody else.

Don’t skimp over this task. Come up with a unique selling proposition that will allow you to operate in a zone of your own. This is a great way to beat competitors, but it starts with brainstorming with your USP.

How do you diversify a marketing strategy?

Are you making the same business mistakes that most small business owners make? Hopefully, you aren’t because it can take a toll on how much money you’re spending on your advertising campaigns. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is relying solely on one source of advertising your business.

It’s always best to have more than one way to bring a customer because you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket and have one source is gone and no more sources. That’s why I make it a point to advertise my business in the most ways possible. I think you should do the same too.

For example, the only way that I used to market my business online was through articles. I thought it would be okay to write many articles and submit them and then do nothing else for my business. Unfortunately, my website traffic had hit a plateau, and I was forced to try something new because the article marketing strategy had become semi-ineffective.

If you’re only marketing your business in one way, I suggest that you change your habits immediately. At any time, your one source of business could dry upon you, and you’re left holding the bag. It’s always best to have more than one way of getting visitors into your door, so keep this in mind.

You could put yourself on a marketing schedule or marketing routine that emphasizes all of the avenues you can promote your business. For example, you could mix yellow pages advertising combined with newspaper advertising and direct mail just to start. Then, after you’ve mastered these techniques, make room for more strategies.

You don’t need to use every marketing technique in the book just to market your business. Usually, suppose you’re the business owner, and you play an active role in the operations of things. In that case, you may not have time to implement some of the marketing strategies available to you. And that’s just because there’s simply not enough time in the day to run your business and
market at the same time.

You have two choices here: The first choice is that you can hire another staff member to work in your business while you focus on marketing. Or… you can continue to work in your business and moderately market your products. Of course, it all depends on how much money you can afford to spend on a new employee. So make this a wise choice.

I think that you should consider hiring a new employee. There are so many things that you can do to market your business, and I think that relying on one traffic source is a path to business destruction. Instead, make use of any other free time to come up with new marketing ideas.

Consider mailing postcards, direct mail letters, press releases, advertorials, classified advertising, newspaper advertising, etc. There are so many ways to market your business, so take advantage of these marketing techniques today.

How do you track marketing?

Are you testing and tracking in your business? The bottom line is that a business owner who tests is the business owner that succeeds.

These business owners test and track their results just to ensure that they’re making the most money possible in their business. But if you don’t test and track, how are you supposed to know what’s working for you and what isn’t?

Even if you’re doing ok in your business, testing and tracking can help you become even more wealthy. I test and track my business all the time, and I think you should do the same. So what are some of the things that you should test on? Well, I’m glad you asked.

One of the first things that you can test is by coding your ads. If you run a display ad or a full-page ad in the newspaper, magazine, online, or even yellow pages… use different 1-800 numbers and website addresses in your ads.

This will cost you a little more to test and try this out, but the strategy is never in doubt. Once you find the ad that works the best for you, continue to run this ad over and over again.

This is how you can earn more money in your advertising. Another way to see what ad is generating the most response is with customer surveys. Have them go online or give them a number to call that states how they found out about your business.

Gather up the results and see which medium is making you the most money. Then, once you’ve found the “control” (the most profitable ad)… cancel out the other ads and run your winning ad the most without fail.

Doing this testing online is even easier. You have at your feet a variety of testing tools and software that will show you immediately which ad is pulling the best. If you’re not marketing your products and services offline, then you’re missing out on a huge marketplace that can be incredibly lucrative.

Testing and tracking can also help with boosting your conversion rates. You see once you cut out all the losers and proceed with the winners, you open up the floodgates to all kinds of wealth. Boosting your conversion rates is vital because it can let you know how much you’re able to go negative for a customer.

A new customer is an asset to your business, and it’s your job to extract maximum value from these people so that you can make the most money in your business. Don’t hopelessly parade around in your business thinking you’re doing ok in your business. You want to be BEYOND ok and should be focused on achieving millionaire status. Be sure to test and track your efforts starting today.

Even if you change the headline on your marketing piece, it can make a huge difference in response. And if your current ads don’t have a headline, it’s time to scrap it and create new ads that contain a headline. This will let readers know what your ad is all about and help stop them and read the rest of your ad.