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  Robert Kiyosaki Why the Rich Get Richer

Best-selling author Robert Kiyosaki explains why many commonly held truths about managing money are obsolete. In their place, he offers financial solutions anyone can follow. “Investing,” he points out, “is not risky, but following bad investment advice is.”   Click on the following link to read more on Robert Kiyosaki: 

http://bit.ly/mdUcI

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• Cold Lead Strategy – Send out a direct mailing or offer them a special promotion
• Warm Lead Strategy – Try a follow-up call, send out a sales letter, or schedule a special seminar or training session to get all of your warm leads together.

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SALES IS A TOUGH JOB It can be a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. What worked last year, may not be opening doors this year. Identifying prospects, turnover, quotas and margins or using sale techniques may be limiting your ability to have the edge on your competition. 

5 marketing mistakes people make in tough times

Posted by Jeremy L. Knauff on September 1st, 2009 in Marketing Strategy

When it comes to marketing, mistakes can be expensive. It’s not just the money wasted on a failed campaign that you have to consider though, it’s also the opportunity lost because the money that you spent now can not be used elsewhere. That means you’ll have to work harder than before just to achieve the same profit margin AND you’ve reduced your ability to market your company.I’ve made my share of mistakes in life and I am certain that I will continue doing so until the day I die, but that’s fine with me because that’s how people learn. I know I’ll never live long enough to make every mistake by myself, so I prefer to learn from other peoples’ mistakes. I’ve found that it saves a lot of time and frustration. That being said, countless entrepreneurs before you have faced tough times, and in their attempts to keep the lifeblood of their companies flowing, most of them have ended up making the same marketing mistakes. Fortunately, instead of following in their footsteps, you can save your self some time and frustration by learning from those who have come before you

Reducing or eliminating their marketing efforts

Just because your revenue may be lower than usual, you don’t have to take the bean-counter’s approach and reduce or eliminate your marketing efforts. That would have the exact opposite effect you’re looking for. Instead, be more selective in your marketing efforts. Do you really need to run the $9,000 magazine ad each month, or could you get the same results with an ad in few smaller publications? You could also get creative and work out a deal with your marketing vendors. After all, when the economy slows down, everyone feels it and they may be willing to offer a bit of flexibility that they wouldn’t ordinarily consider.

Reducing or eliminating sales staff

This is a simple equation: More people in the field selling your product or service = more revenue. If your sales staff is commission based (and they should be) there is no cost to you unless they sell something. This means that your profit margins will be a little lower, but it also means that you can focus more energy on running your business. More importantly, it’s scalable. If are the sole rainmaker in your company, you’ll generally have to work at least twice as long to sell twice as much, but if you have a sales staff, increasing sales is a simple matter of hiring additional sales personnel. The key here is to make sure that they have the tools they need to do their job effectively

Accepting every client that knocks on their door

It may seem counter-intuitive, but sometimes you need to turn potential clients down. More often than not, you probably know when a client is going to be more trouble than they’re worth. Trust your gut and save yourself the headaches. If they come to you complaining about how horrible all of their previous vendor experiences have been and how no one could ever get anything right, that should be a huge red flag for you. Any profit you would have made will quickly be eliminated trying (unsuccessfully) to keep this client happy. The same applies to clients that that are too large or too small for your company. You need to choose clients you can effectively work with and that fit your business model. If your construction company represents strong family values, no matter how good the money may be, you really should pass on building the next strip club in your city.

Referral Marketing – The Most Powerful Form of Advertising

Practice these referral marketing techniques and your business will explode with new customers

By John Jantsch

Business owners tell me everyday that the way they generate the most new business is through referral marketing. Yet they don’t seem to grasp the power of this statement. Few if any businesses harness the true power of referrals by making the receiving of systematic referrals a cornerstone of their marketing efforts.

First let me tell you why you need to do this.

1. Referrals are credible right from the start. When a trusted friend tells you about a business you transfer that trust to this company…even if you’ve never heard of them before.

2. People who are referred to a business tend to spend more money. Research has proven this beyond the shadow of a doubt and it is likely because people tend to refer other who are highly qualified and not just tire kickers or price shoppers.

3. Referrals are very cost-effective. In some cases free or a fraction of what you might pay in advertising costs.

In some industries, like consulting and professional services most companies are chosen solely on the recommendation of a friend.

Are you getting your referrals…if not consider these little ideas.

1. Expect to get referrals but don’t assume you will. Talk about them early and often and build them into your sales and marketing efforts…don’t wait for people to offer them.

2. Create a system. It can be as simple as advertising $20 for every referral.

3. Follow-up by phone or mail asking for referrals

4. Give every client 3 business cards. Look in your drawer you’ve got hundreds. Give them out to clients and they may just pass them along.

Referrals are essential to your business so don’t overlook them chasing the newest trend in marketing in your industry.

~~~~~

John Jantsch is the owner of Jantsch Communications, a marketing consulting firm located in Kansas City, Mo. He is the creator of Duct Tape Marketing, a fully-customizable turn-key marketing system. You can reach him at 816-561-3931 or john@ducttapemarketing.com

You may reprint and distribute this article freely as long as you print it in its entirety including the author’s bio.

Related Articles

Unwritten Rules of Referral – John Jantsch – Follow these rules when you design your referral marketing system and you can create a flood of new business

Educate Your Referral Sources – John Jantsch – Show your clients and referral sources exactly how to refer you and receive higher quality referral leads.

Expect Referrals – John Jantsch – One of the most powerful referral systems on the planet is to simply make receiving referrals an expectation of doing business with your firm

Turbo Charge Your Referral Marketing – Ruth Stevens shows you ways to motivate your referral marketing network

Referral Marketing Resource

Referral Flood – How to create a flood of new business without spending one dime on advertising. An insider’s shortcut to referral marketing that will supercharge your business, your wealth, and your life…even if you don’t know a thing about marketing. Ebook and Audio CD course.

It’s not spam, honestly

Successful emarketing campaigns are like any other direct marketing initiative, in that firstly you need a decent offer and secondly a decent list. An important element of any email marketing strategy, therefore, includes plans for continuing to grow the list. Some ideas for growing an in-house list are:

• Include “forward to friend” in all outbound emails
• Add sign up form for newsletter on the website in prominent area
• Drive all prospects to website from all advertising
• Collect email addresses at trade shows and other events
• Mention the newsletter and website on the “hold music” for inbound calls
• Have customer service staff ask all callers if they’d like to receive email newsletters
• Include link to newsletter sign up form in email signature

Home-generated, opt-in lists are preferrable as they are likely to be accurate and relevant. However, lists are also available to buy – but they are expensive and they often aren’t up-to-date. Avoid them if possible! If you do buy a list, remember that permission is a legal requirement. If you buy a list of potential customers to contact, make sure you get permission to re-contact those individuals. Data houses won’t permit you to re-use their data without paying for it again, so it is vital to invite a response allowing you to harvest the customer information for your own database. Data protection laws can be implemented retrospectively, which can mean that you lose any information that you did not have permission to collect.

Metrics
It’s important to measure success. What does this campaign have to achieve to be considered a success? What is the minimum requirement? What is the breakeven point? Sharing these metrics will help communicate to all involved how emarketing can truly impact your brand. A few ideas of metrics are:

• Open rate – the number of messages opened is a general metric to gauge interest
• Click-through rate – the number of people that clicked a link within your message.
• Conversions – the number of people that took a specific action as a result of your message.
• Forward rate – how many times the message was forwarded to others.
• Leads by source – track leads from email forwarding or referral
• Sales metrics before email marketing and trends after
• Website traffic before email marketing and after
• Customer retention before email marketing and after

Testing
One of the advantages of email marketing is that you can test the campaign on a batch of customers first and adjust what you’re doing according to the responses you get.

If you have a low open rate:

• Change the frequency
• Change the subject heading
• Shorten length (reduce file size)
• Change the day/time of day sent (Tuesdays – Thursdays AM usually best)
• Is the ‘from’ field meaningful?

If you have a low click-through rate:

• More prominent call to action
• Incentivised call to action
• Change time of day sent
• Change product types offered
• Improve the offer — cross-sell promotions with partners, offer discounts on products previously abandoned in basket, hold a competition etc.

Data collection
Plan in advance what type of information to collect so you can segment your audience by appropriate fields. After you have determined what type of data you have and what you need, the next step is to determine at what point you collect that information. Do you ask for it all up front? Depending on your target audience, you may need to limit the amount of information asked initially so you don’t put customers off. As a general rule, seek to capture the minimum amount of information possible and collect additional details retrospectively. Ways to collect additional information include:

• Have the “Thank You” page ask for additional information post-subscription
• Include a survey in the confirmation or welcome email
• Include survey questions throughout the life of the newsletter
• Prompt subscribers to update their information periodically
• Offer incentives based on the subscriber supplying additional information
• When inviting customers to complete online questionnaires, you should ask no more than seven questions at one time, and these should all be visible on one screen.

And remember – it is important that your email campaign compliments traditional media campaigns. Consumers don’t distinguish between different marketing channels, so ensure that your email campaign integrates with your overall brand strategy.

How to Use an Email Marketing Campaign to Build a Customer Relationship

Member

By StacyP
User-Submitted Article

Article Rating: (3 Ratings)

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a valuable tool for attracting a customer—that is, if you do it wisely. Here are some tips for building a customer relationship with an effective email marketing campaign.

1. Step 1

   First, nix the thought of buying a random email marketing list. Spamming the email box of a stranger is not going to give you a solid customer relationship. Sorry, but no matter how clever you think that subject heading for your email marketing campaign is, it’s useless if you haven’t already earned the trust that comes with a customer relationship.

2. Step 2

   Which brings me to my next point … A sound email marketing campaign needs to center on gaining the trust of your potential customer. Do not fool yourself into thinking that an email marketing campaign is simply sending out persuasive sales letters to interested buyers of your product. Targeting your customer is part of an effective email marketing campaign, but building a relationship takes trust.

3. Step 3

   So, how do you gain the trust of a potential customer? Write a quick eBook that ties in with your email marketing campaign. Offer it for free on your website’s landing page. Spread the word about this free offer. And what do people have to do to get this valuable eBook for free? Oh, they just need to sign up to be on an innocent little emailing list.

4. Step 4

   What do you do with this email list? Well, for starters, you keep it genuine if you want any kind of a customer relationship. After you send the free eBook (with your product tied into it, of course), keep that email relationship going.

   The best marketing campaign is one that offers useful information while still getting the word out on your product. Send periodical email newsletters that are newsworthy, but also inconspicuously sell your product. This is a good beginning to using your email marketing campaign to build a customer relationship