Steps To Building Your Business Awareness As An Expert

Most industries have specific people that are considered the experts in their industry. Do you have any competitors that you keep seeing everywhere? They are published in newspapers, are guests on TV spots, etc?

It's not because they actually know more than you. It's because they know how to get media exposure. It's not actually that hard and you can skyrocket your small business by marketing this way and it isn't actually going to cost you a dime!

3 Tips to Specialize, Become The Expert In Your Industry & Target Your Marketing More Effectively

The biggest problem I see in most businesses today is that they try to be everything to everyone. This just isn't effective in the long term. You know the phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none.” Business is the same way. Too many businesses keep adding more and more products or services to their business that are related but not based around their core business and the next thing you know they are a generalist. To really succeed in your business and effectively use your marketing to target the right prospects, you need to specialize.

Specializing allows you to not only target your marketing better but it also allows you to charge more for your services. A general family doctor doesn't charge as much as a brain surgeon. This model works in pretty much any business and if you can specialize your business marketing and image, you can target your perfect client much easier.

4 Tips To Be Creative With Your Business Cards

Every business owner should have business cards for their business. It amazes me how many people show up to a Chamber mixer or other networking event and don't have business cards. Business cards are a critical piece of your marketing mix and should never be overlooked.

Your business card is one of the most cost effective marketing you can do in your business yet too many people either don't have business cards or have a business card that is plain and boring. You need to make your business card stand out from the stack of business cards that everyone collects every day in their own networking.

Building Monthly Residual Income For Your Existing Business

As a small business owner, you may be running into the up and down cash flow that most businesses run in to. This happens in almost any type of business. We have good months and then... Not so good months.

The best way to help eliminate this up and down issue is to set up a form of pre-paid program for your customers to help even out your cash flow and build a strong monthly base for your business.

This can be in the form of a pre-paid program, monthly autoship program or monthly membership program. This often overlooked income stream for your business can help any small business even out their cash flow and build your business each and every month.

So let's take a look at each of these three programs and expand on each one.

Pre-paid programs
This method works great if you have customers that make larger purchases. Using this method you can bring in a good cash flow at any time and guarantee that the customer spends their money with you. The best way to do this is with Gift Cards. Most of the major retail stores out there are using gift cards or reloadable cards as a great way to increase cash flow in their business.

These cards can have any amount of money added to them by the customer and then they can give it as a gift or even keep it for their own use. Some people will use these cards to help themselves keep a budget on their spending. They will go in each month and add a specific amount to the card as their “spending limit”. Parents buy these cards for college kids and reload them each money to ensure they can buy things they need but it's better than cash that they never know what it will be spent on.

From your side, you get paid either way. Once the money is spent on these cards, you know that you've been paid and have the cash flow. The customers may not use the cards right away but you already have been paid.

Autoship Programs
Many nutritional supplement companies use this as a way to ensure monthly recurring income and it's a great benefit for both the company and the customer.

You sign up for their program and every month they ship you your products without you having to do anything on your part.

The “Book Of The Month” Club was one of the first companies to use this type of system to ensure cash flow.

What products do you have that your customers need each month or even every couple of months that you could offer as an autoship program?

Office supply or printer supply stores might offer to autoship a customer's ink or toner each month to ensure that the customer never runs out of ink and just auto charge their account each month for the order.

It's easier for the customer so they don't have to worry about running out of ink in the middle of a big print job and the Supply store gets an automatic order each and every month.

Monthly Memberships
Monthly membership programs are the third way you can build in more stable cash flow for your business.

This type of program works best as an added upsell to a larger single purchase product. This could be a program for continual education and training on product that the customer purchased.

Another way this can be used is as a discount program. If the customer becomes part of your membership program, they might get your newsletter that gives them great tips and tricks each month but also gives them access to specific special discounts not offered to the general public.

Think about the a membership to Sam's Club or Costco. You can't even buy from there stores unless you are a member of their membership program.

So there you have it.

As a business owner, you need to be looking at ways you can build in a form of monthly residual income for your business in order to even out cash flow and build your business with a stable residual baseline of income. Getting this in place will help your business if you have a slower month here and there and ensure your business is growing each and every month.

Using Secret Sales To Build Customer Value And Market Your Small Business

One of the most overlooked assets any business has to boost sales in their small business is their existing customer base. How many businesses do you buy from that you never hear from again until you actually contact them to reorder that product again?

As a small business owner, it's your responsibility to keep in touch with your customers and prospects in order to make sure that they don't forget about you and end up buying from your competitor the next time they have a need.

One of the best ways to keep in touch with those customers is to have a secret closed door sale just for them. It makes them feel special and it gives you extra kudos for going out of your way just for them. This type of customer appreciation will go a long way to building your relationship and loyalty with your customers.

Remember that that there are only three ways to increase sales in any small business.

1. Increase your customer list.


2. Increase the dollar amount your customer spends each time with you


3. Or increase the number of times that customer buys from you

Instead of always focusing on just getting new customers like the rest of the other businesses out there, spend a little time working on the existing customers you have. They are much easier to sell to again as long as you are consistent on providing a great service.

What if you could hold a secret sale just for your existing customers? You could offer larger than usual discounts just for those people. Not only will you get them to come back but you are building the additional loyalty because of the special offer that is exclusive to just them.

People like to be part of an exclusive club or community. It makes them feel like they are part of something. It ties to basic human emotion. People want to be part of a special group. Your special sale will promote that and cater to their personal needs.

When thinking about your special secret sale, there are a couple of things that you should keep in mind when setting it up.

First off, don't be cheap. Obviously, you need to make a profit in order to stay successful but make the discounts on this sale much larger than you would normally offer. You are still going to make a profit that you might not have got without the sale at all and you are building your relationship with your customer at the same time. Keep in mind that your existing customers will be your best marketing tool for both repeat business and for referrals to their friends and family that might need your services too. You want to make sure that you keep them happy.

The second thing you should do is make your sale an event. Don't just send out an email or a single flyer about the event. Promote it like a big event. Send your customers VIP Pass promotional postcards or even design something for your email that they need to print out as an exclusive VIP pass. This enhances the experience for them and lets them know that this is something you did just to tell them that you appreciate their business and want to keep them happy. Happy customers talk more about your products than indifferent ones do.

You don't have to run a secret sale only once a year either. You can do it a couple of times a year. Just be sure to theme your sale to something special and you'll get better results from the event. Most businesses will do a sale during the holidays because it's such a popular time and everyone is looking for a sales during that time of year. You could do something different and get a large group of people that will remember you for it.

I've done Halloween sales before that were a huge hit. Why? Because that's my favorite holiday and it really stood out since no one else in our industry ever does a Halloween sale. Other small businesses marketing in my industry missed the boat since I had my sale a month before they even thought about theirs.

Be creative. Find odd holidays that you can use to help promote your sale and give it a reason why other than “just because”. Just be sure to keep it exclusive to your customers and make it a big deal that is reserved just for them because of your loyalty to them. Show them how much you appreciate them as customers and build that relationship. When you are looking at marketing your small business, you need to be ahead of the competition and look for new ideas and strategies to add to to your marketing mix.

Small Business Marketing Ideas – Direct Mail Is Still King For Marketing Your Businesses

As a small business owner, we know that we need to keep a good eye on our budgets. Over the recent few years businesses are pushing online traffic as their primary way of marketing their small business. While this is a great thing to do, many then forget about offline marketing via direct mail to their prospects and existing customers.

Direct mail has always had the highest response rate of any media used in the marketing mix and should not be ignored or discarded.

Direct mail can be much more personalized than any form of email or other online marketing. When your customer gets a personalized letter or postcard with their name on it, they feel like you care about them. Just adding “Dear Jane,” at the beginning of your sales letter will increase the chances of them reading it and feeling like you wrote it directly to them. Even if they know that it was a mail merge, sub-consciously they feel like you sent it just to them.

So what are the best ways to use direct mail as another tool in your marketing mix?

Personalized sales letters are a great way to grab the attention of new prospects. Send them a letter introducing yourself and your products. The first letter can be very casual. Tell a little about yourself and why you are with the company or if you are the owner, that's even better. Tell them why you started the company and what your purpose is. This makes the prospect get to know you before they have even met you. Remember people buy from who they know, like and trust. You are building trust at this point.

One of the best things to do after mailing this type of letter is to give it a few days and follow up with a phone call. You aren't making a cold call any more. You are now just following up to make sure they got your letter. This will easily open the doors for a conversation and even a sales meeting.

Postcards are also a great tool to add to your marketing mix. You can get personalized postcards done that still have a note to the prospect with their name on it. Postcards are also a great way to follow up with existing clients. Send them a birthday card, or any other holiday card. You can use great systems to automate the process so the cards are automatically sent out but still have that personal touch to them. This will endear you to your customers and they will keep you in their minds.

Let's say that you are in a business complex with other businesses that cater to the same types of clients. You could get together with the other business owners in the complex and create your own community coupon packs. This would be similar to card decks or Val-Pak marketing but it's designed just for the businesses in your area. You could have them printed up and then mail them to the neighborhoods in your surrounding area. This is very targeted and the cost of this marketing program would be split between all the participating businesses. You each only have to pay a small amount to get your marketing out to your target market in your local area.

As you can see, direct marketing can be a great way to market your small business. It can not only be one more tool to add to your marketing mix but it also will produce higher responses than other more generic marketing and advertising if it is done correctly. So not matter what you are doing to market your business, direct mail should be just one more thing to add to your small business marketing mix.

Small Business Marketing Ideas – Preselling From Your Office Lobby

Do you have a brick and mortar office location or retail location that you customers come in to? Then you could be pre-selling your customers on your products and services before they actually even meet with you.

Your first impressions are critical in any business. Just like your first image of how you dress, your office should have the same image when a client comes in your door. A clean and professional look and feel will really make a difference in your customer's eyes.

Small Business Marketing Ideas To Expand Your Client Base Quickly

Businesses close up shop every day. There are a dozen reasons that your competition might be closing their doors. Economic changes, bad business operations, bad location or just a lack of a marketing plan (not you though, right?!)

As hard as it is for these businesses and their owners, most of them will still want to make sure that their customers are taken care of after they close their doors. This makes a great opportunity for you to not only get a new list of potential clients but make sure that those people are taken care of once the old business is long gone.