How do you get them to choose you? Make them aware of your company, products and services, and get them to like you and trust you?

How do you do this? It rarely occurs by chance.

In the 1700s, a cattle rancher began giving his cattle a distinctive identity by placing a certain burn mark in the hide of each. He did so to thwart thieves. Over time, people were willing to pay more for his cattle at auction. The quality of the beef was not necessarily better, but the buyers liked knowing for certain where the cattle came from. The burned-on brand itself allowed people to identify his product over others. Branding was born in a way that the inventor never intended.

Some companies today develop strong brands and achieve success without explicitly trying to do so. Typically, it is the natural result of an owner having a firm grasp on who he or she is and what he or she stands for. Further, the owner has a firm and passionate grasp on the ideals by which he/she will run his/her company, conduct business, develop products, etc. In fact, the reputation, image or “brand” of a small or midsize business is often simply the qualities embodied by the owner or owners. Or, in another way, the company brand is simply the reputation, feel and trust that customers have for the owner himself or herself.

But many of us were not blessed with a crystal-clear “winning” vision and a natural instinct for effective marketing and branding. Luckily, the process has been studied and can now be learned and implemented. It is a process that begins with setting and creating the vision that every successful venture requires: a crystal-clear vision for who you are, what you stand for, and why customers will come to you rather than your competitors. Establish this vision clearly and answers to the “what to do” and “what to say” questions of your marketing, advertising and selling campaigns will more readily present themselves.

“Many businesses are paralyzed in today’s difficult environment. They don’t have a system for success or forget what they actually know, and are merely reactive,” says Mattson. “This time can actually be a period of profit and productivity, but you must avoid knee-jerk reactions that will keep your company in a rut.” Mattson offers these seven deadly sales sins to avoid now and forever:

1. Abandon your sales procedures. When sales slow down, many businesses panic, forget what they know and start throwing ideas against the wall to see what sticks. They jump from activity to activity, neglecting their sales process. Stop there. A sales process tells you exactly what needs to happen to complete a sale. Imagine an emergency room. When a patient comes into triage, the hospital doesn’t try multiple check-in procedures and leave its process to chance, or things would be chaos. There are procedures and orderly steps that need to be taken every single time to correctly treat a patient. The same is true in sales.
2. Focus on revenue only. If you want to frustrate a sales team, focus only on numbers. What you really need to consider is revenue and behaviors. To achieve your sales goal, your business needs to know which behaviors need to take place to provide favorable sales results.
3. Stop prospecting. If you want to lose long-term sales, try focusing only on your current customers. When a business gets to a certain size, employees feel that they can relax and are past needing to prospect. Don’t fall for this trap. Very few people like to prospect. You don’t have to like it; you just have to do it. While it is important not to neglect your existing customers, you always need to be on the lookout for new customers in anticipation of the peaks and valleys throughout the year.
4. Eliminate marketing and advertising. When businesses see a decrease in sales, the first costs they tend to cut are marketing and advertising. That is a mistake. Now more than ever, companies must create mindshare with customers and prospects. An often-missed opportunity is simply following up on all leads generated through marketing. For instance, research shows that only 2% of leads at trade shows are followed up on. Simply following up on leads could allow you to come out of the slump stronger than your competitors.
5. Act like Hercules. If you really want to kill sales, create an atmosphere of learned helplessness. In fact, many sales managers do this and don’t even realize what they have done. The sales manager steps in and micro-manages the day-to-day processes of the sales teams to “save the day.” This tactic could backfire. Instead, managers need to empower their sales people to close deals within parameters, and be responsible and accountable for their own progress.
6. Believe that you’re “past that.” If you want to drive a business into the ground, forget what you did that made the business successful. Remember what made clients and prospects fall in love with your company, then go back to that.
7. Stop planning for seasonal slowdowns. If you want to stay in a sales rut, don’t plan ahead for seasonal slowdowns. Leaders should anticipate months or times of year when sales trend down, and feed the sales funnel before these occur. If you know your business will be slow during the holidays, feed your sales funnel now.By avoiding these deadly sales sins, you just may come out of 2010 stronger than ever.

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This article was written by David Mattson, CEO of Sandler Training (www.sandler.com).

Internet marketing expert Matt Bailey guesses businesses own somewhere between 20 and 30 Web domains (aka URLs) each, on average — a surprisingly high number. I think I own maybe 15 or 20. But a quick check revealed we own 88.

Holy smokes! These things stack up like junk in a storage closet. They’re basically impulse buys, just a click away, $3 to $10 a pop.

Business owners buy the URLs for their business names, and pick up product names, too. Oh, and common misspellings of each one, with dashes between the words? Goodness, better be safe and also control each in .net, .org, .biz, .us, .info, et al.

Need a bigger closet.

But why waste $100 to $1,000 per year and some administrative time on domains with no utility? Will someone please explain which ones we should own or not own?

We talked to Matt Bailey, president of SiteLogic, and Steve Schneiderman, president of Schneiderman Marketing, two people who should know — if anyone should. Here’s what they agreed on:

1. Buy your company name, product name(s) and personal domain name (e.g., JohnDSmith.com) if you can get them.
2. Buy common misspellings of your main URL. Example: AcquisitionAdvisors.com owns www.AcquisitionAdviser.com and www.AcquisitionAdvisor.com and forwards them to the main URL.
3. Buy your company name and main product name(s) with dashes between the words, e.g., www.The-Business-Owner.com. Direct them to the domains they mimic. This keeps them out of the hands of others who might use them to your detriment.
4. Concern yourself only with .com, .net and .org. Don’t worry about .info, .biz, .us et al.
5. Buy your business name + sucks. Example: This publication is The Business Owner. We own www.TheBusinessOwner.com. We should buy www.TheBusinessOwnerSucks.com. Disgruntled employees or customers could have a lot of fun with a URL like this (often do)!

Schneiderman says you have to think about what the devious might try to pull, such as buying derivations of your name, business name or product name, and using them to make a defamatory message pop up when people search for you or your products or services. That’s why we suggest you buy your “sucks” URL as described above.

Bailey and Schneiderman both explain that while it’s wise to own your business names and trade names — to keep them out of the hands of others — it’s even better to put them to productive use. For example, use a URL for a particular product by creating a dedicated landing page. This allows for enhanced traffic tracking as well as a Web “place” that focuses exclusively on a single task, e.g., selling a particular product or service.

You cannot grow revenue and earn high profits without first becoming great at lead generation. If you aspire to be in the business fast lane, lead generation is your fuel.

What’s the key to lead generation? Every business is unique, so it’s a question you must find the answer to yourself. It’s a challenging task, to be sure, but it’s imperative. For some, a key component is the physical location. The signage and “look” that get the right prospects in the door. For almost all types of businesses, it’s about figuring out which types of campaigns are most effective.

Once leads are being consistently generated in sufficient quality and quantity to support revenue levels that will allow profitable operation of the business, the task turns to lead conversion. Fuel alone won’t get you motoring down the road. You need a lead conversion machine. An efficient machine that maximizes the revenue derived from the investment you make in lead generation.

Finally, a business must satisfactorily deliver the purchased product or service if it hopes to endure. Deliver in a manner that garners return business. And so business, in its essence, is simply:

• Lead generation
• Lead conversion
• Product or service delivery

Are you giving enough attention to A and B above? Do you realize how critical C is to your repeat business?

Lead Generation

The only way to figure out the most cost-effective means for generating quality leads is trial and error. To be sure, you can learn a lot from your peers. The best place to do this is at trade shows and conferences. But in the end you must try, try and try again. Better yet, test, test and test gain. It’s a game of keeping track of each effort, tracking the results and then trying different combinations and nuances to find an even more successful campaign. Finding one great campaign might do the trick for a while, but you should never stop experimenting and tracking the results. It’s expensive. It’s an investment. It’s the only way to build a business that has enduring success.

What will it take? At least one full-time person dedicated to running, and building, your lead generation machine.

Lead Conversion

Leads have no value unless converted to cash. Turing them to cash is an entirely different process from lead generation. But similar to lead generation, the process should be handled by a dedicated person, or staff. A specialist, or specialists, whose one task is converting leads into clients.

Again, the appropriate and optimal process differs for each business. For a retailer, it’s about how walk-in traffic is greeted, how the inventory is presented or arranged, how their questions are answered, and how they’re “checked out.” McDonald’s has it down pat, of course. “Would you like to try one of our new premium smoothies today?”

Similar to lead generation, lead conversion is a process of testing and comparing results. A process of continually replaced inferior techniques with higher-yielding ones. Do in-person visits with free mock-ups, for example, yield a higher ROI than phone sales with samples of work performed for other customers?

Product or Service Delivery

What’s better than turning a lead into cash? Well, turning a lead into a stream of cash, of course. Returning customers are more profitable than new ones because:

• They do not require an investment in lead generation.
• They do not require the same level of service, i.e., persuading, teaching, selling, system/database setup, post-purchase assistance, etc.

Companies that enjoy a high level of repeat customers are almost always very profitable. You want to have a very profitable company, right? You must execute. Your execution effort is your third critical business process. You should have at least one full-time person in charge of product and/or service delivery and customer satisfaction. Customers return when they’re satisfied with their prior purchases and then they send their friends.

Developing a highly profitable business is not easy, of course, but when we boil down the complexity and see clearly the key processes that can lead us to success, our task becomes easier. Just three processes must be mastered. Becoming “decent” at all three is probably enough to put yourself in the top 20 percent. That’s where the spoils are.

Business today can seem complex, but it’s mainly just different. Heck, it’s even easier in some respects. Learn the rules and how to play the game, and you can find success.

• Broaden awareness of your firm and its offerings.
• Control and mold your brand.
• Open your storefront to the entire world.

More and more people are finding what they want on the Web. Does your company appear high in the ranking for keywords people use to find products and services you provide? If so, does your website efficiently convert visits into dollars?

Odds are the mistakes you make are also made by others, so we interviewed two experts on Internet marketing and website optimization — Steven Schneiderman of Schneiderman & Associates and Matt Bailey of SiteLogic. Here’s what they said.

Mistake #1: Failure to Focus on the Fundamentals.

The fundamental building blocks of website marketing are architecture, content and incoming links. It’s a waste of time and money for a company to work on other things until these are done well. This is because website marketing is about getting ranked high when people type certain keywords or phrases into search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing, and three things drive the rankings: architecture, content and incoming links.

Mistake #2: Design for Visual Appeal Rather Than SEO and User-Friendliness.

The #1 objective is to design the site so your target audience can quickly and easily find your site, locate what they want in your site, and quickly and easily purchase, subscribe, etc. So the site must first be built for this purpose. The “look” should be addressed once SEO (search engine optimization), functionality and user-friendliness are secured.

Mistake #3: Use Your Own Lingo Instead of Your Customer’s.

Your website mission is to set up your site so people searching for things you offer will quickly and easily find you (i.e., your site). It begins when people think about what they want and then type their words into a search engine such as Google. So you better set up your site to respond to the words that searchers use (i.e., type into a Web browser). Refer to your products or services (on your site) as something other than what searchers use, and your customers will never find you.

Mistake #4: No Website Strategy.

What is it you want to accomplish with your site? Visitors don’t really do anything for you. You want sales. Or information that will help you get sales. Visitors who come and go without buying something or giving you information you can use in the future do nothing for you. So what is the highest-value action that visitors to your site could take? The second-highest? Third? These should be the goals of your site. Everything you do should further the site’s effectiveness at gaining relevant visitors and getting them to take the actions you desire.

Mistake #5: Confusing Site Navigation.

Spend extra time organizing your content into a logical and intuitive structure. The primary navigation is usually found at the top or to the side of the content and should outline the 4 to 10 main sections of your site. You can then have smaller groups of pages within. The secondary navigation will include contact information, “about us,” copyright and privacy policy, and is always found at the bottom of the page. The navigation should be the same on every page. Don’t forget to link the logo back to the home page, usually found in the top left corner of the page. It is also a good practice to use a breadcrumb trail so users know where they are at all times.

Mistake #6: No Lead Capture.

Every website should capture, at a minimum, the first name and email address of as many visitors as possible. The reason is that you need a prospect list. A mail list for future marketing efforts. Building yours should be among the most important focuses of your website. The best way is to integrate this is with an autoresponder. Use this service to generate your form’s HTML code, manage your lists, personalize your email communications, and analyze the open and forward rates of all your email campaigns.

Mistake #7: Poor Use of Color.

The best way to choose a color palette is to examine your logo’s colors and then extend them across the site, choosing light colors for page backgrounds and darker contrasting colors for body text and headlines. If possible, use a color wheel to analyze related colors, and remember to use plenty of white space to avoid a crowded look and feel.

Mistake #8: Poor Type Treatment.

If you have to squint, the type is too small. And too many different typefaces can also make a Web page challenging to read. Stick to one type family (e.g., Times Roman, Arial) and use 10 –12 points for the body text and 18 – 24 bold for headlines and section titles.

Mistake #9: Purposeless Social Media.

Social networking on sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter can play a role in creating awareness and building your brand, but until your site is optimized and you’re “blocking and tackling” well, don’t bother. Then begin blogging. Blogging is incredibly effective for creating awareness and it’s search engine friendly. Finally, when you do enter the world of social media, network with a purpose. Decide on your voice, stay on topic and build your brand. And don’t forget: You can’t expect others to interact in your community if you don’t interact in theirs.

Mistake #10: No Pictures or Videos.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Too much text is just plain boring. Whether you’re selling a product or services, place interesting and attractive pictures on your site. Be sure at least a few are friendly and professional faces. Fill in the alternative text data field (“ALT Text”) for each image so they’ll be searchable and so if an image fails to load, the visitor will see a description of the image. Finally, professional photographers and videographers are well worth the investment.

Mistake #11: No Story.

Everyone loves a good story, so go beyond the facts and futures. Tell a story. Your goal should be to capture visitors quickly and entice them to lean in, learn more, and subscribe to your newsletter or contact you to learn more.

Mistake #12: Poor Prose, Typos.

Writing well is hard work. Proofing is tough as well. Work hard at your copy and have it edited and re-edited. Copy editors are not hard to find and are well worth the money.

Mistake #13: Out of Date.

Most companies will completely forget to update their website after initial launch. The content ages quickly and loses relevance. Product information becomes outdated and useless. People leave the company, but their profiles are not removed. Links to third-party sites get broken. Management of your website content is a critical part of your long-term marketing success. If your website has an intuitive content management system (CMS), push the responsibility for updating your website down to the lowest level of administrative help possible. Otherwise, assign the duty to a responsible marketing person and make him/her point person for all monthly updates across the company. And content that is removed from your site but not your server may remain searchable and findable by Web browsers.

How can a business get press coverage without hiring a PR firm?

To find out, we called a handful of magazine publishers around the country. We asked what criteria they use, and how they like to be “pitched.” Of course, the editor is charged with selecting topics and writing and assigning articles. Here are those we contacted:

ABA Bank Marketing Magazine

Walt Albro, Editor

Tulsa People Magazine

Kendall Barrow, Managing Editor

Aspen Sojourner

Michael Miracle, Managing Editor

Machinery Lubrication Magazine

Paul Arnold, Editor-in-Chief

Idaho Golf Magazine

Laurie Sammis, Editor

Park City Magazine

Kristen Case, Editor

What did we learn? Refreshingly, they’re real people! Pretty nice at that. We talked to five of the six in short order. They’re not so concerned about whether you or your organization might get publicity, or want publicity, or how bad you might want or need it. It’s more like my father always says — people are concerned mostly with themselves. Editors are concerned with finding interesting story ideas for their readers. So your job, as a business owner, is simply to help the editors of the publications you target get what they need and want — good, interesting information and stories for their readers. Here’s how:

Step 1: Get to know the target publication. How else will you give the editor what he or she wants? Pick up a handful of copies or order a subscription. Peruse the website. What types of things do they cover? Find their mission statement; even call their office and inquire if you must, but it should be pretty obvious. Park City Magazine, for example, is about people, places, history and happenings in Park City, Utah. Machinery Lubrication Magazine covers issues, trends, products and people impacting — or soon to impact — the world of machinery lubrication (a subset of machinery and plant maintenance).

Step 2: Find a story idea that fits into the publishing scope of the publication. If the publication you target issues an editorial calendar, look there. It’ll be on their website. It’s a list of the topics they’ll cover in future issues. Can you provide content that fits, that helps them cover the topic in an interesting way? Remember, the editor’s job is to serve his or her audience with interesting, helpful information. Your job is to help them identify content that fits the bill. Give them some article fodder and they’ll appreciate it.

Virtually all publications today have online editions that, by their nature, are beasts requiring constant feeding. The editors’ need for content never ends. Do them a favor; give ‘em some. Just be sure your articles serve the AUDIENCE first.

Step 3: Make the pitch in the manner desired by the editor. To determine this, just call and ask the editor. Almost all editors we talked to seemed to prefer a short email summary.

If your idea does not resonate, don’t worry about it, just ask how or where it missed the target and then go back to the drawing board.

To get your story told, keep in mind that editors are very busy people. Be respectful of their time, do your homework, and pitch them story ideas that will be of value and interest to their target audience, and you’ll find success. Unfortunately, if your product or service just does not have any tie-in with the focus of the publication and its target audience, you’re out of luck. All the effort and creativity in the world aren’t going to get your square peg into their round hole. You’re not locked out, just relegated to the ranks of paid advertisers.

Examples of Good and Bad Pitches

Michael Miracle, Managing Editor

Aspen Sojourner

Good Pitch: Over the course of the last year, I have received several pitches for Bolle and Serengeti eyewear from a PR agency in New York. The agency was pitching Bolle glasses and goggles, both of which are used with great frequency in Aspen, a ski and sports town. I emailed back and forth with the account rep, asking her which were the more “up-market” products that might appeal to our readers. She sent me a pair of goggles, which I tried for much of last ski season. She also sent me a pair of tennis-specific sports glasses. Upon my request, she also determined which retailers in Aspen carried the products, which gave me the local hook I was looking for. Both the goggles and tennis glasses will appear either in our print publication or on our website in the near future.

Bad Pitch: I recently received an email and follow-up phone call from a PR agency repping “Socks Appeal.” It was similar to the Bolle pitch in that it was coming from a national agency who had identified our market as a good one for the client. Socks Appeal are knee-length socks with a faux-fur trim at the top. The fur embellishment hangs over the edge of a pair of tall boots, giving them the appearance of being fur-lined themselves, though at a fraction of the cost. The pitch had a strong “recession cost-saver” angle and made the case that our ski-town readers would likely be intrigued by the product on a fashion angle as well. I asked for a local retailer and was told there was none. For me that was the end of it, and the PR rep understood. Our magazine has “Aspen” in its title, and we only consider stories with a strong Aspen hook. Our readers pick up the magazine either because they are in Aspen or they have a strong affinity for Aspen wherever else they might be.And since Aspen has an abundance of stories and retailers with which we can fill our pages, we simply don’t need stories that have no clear connection to Aspen.

Kendall Barrow, Editor

Tulsa People Magazine

Good Pitch: A local trapeze instructing school pitched a story about their business. They were honest — they needed business and feared few Tulsans knew they were under new ownership and offering new services. New services = news, not to mention it’s the only business of its kind in Tulsa (more news), and it fits our goal (local news).

Bad Pitch #1: A recent pitch from a New York company about a product that was not even sold in Tulsa stores! We are a COMMUNITY magazine. We don’t care about a product made in NYC that’s not available in Tulsa. Our readers can’t benefit from this news unless they have a trip planned to New York.

Bad Pitch #2: We recently received a pitch to cover a company being named in Tulsa’s Top 25 something-or-other. Without being too specific, being in the top 25 means there are 24 other LOCAL companies who received this honor, too. We’d have to cover all 25 to be fair. If they were #1, well, that might be news to us, or top 10 in the country — that’s possibly worthy of something. Nowadays, however, there are more and more awards, so it gets harder and harder to justify including them. Those have their place in newspapers alongside community hires and promotions, not in a monthly magazine.

Paul Arnold, Editor-in-Chief

Machinery Lubrication Magazine

Good Pitch #1: An industrial consulting firm by the name of Life Cycle Engineering emailed an article they had written titled “Finding the Root Cause of Energy Consumption.” It was well written, cited numerous other studies that supported the points being made in the article, and focused on the information (not on the fact that this company has services to offer in this area). Click here for the pitch. Click here for the article that we did from it.

Good Pitch #2: The organizers of the PartsToClean trade fair sent a short, well-written, straight-to-the-point article about the critical role that proper in-process cleaning techniques and technologies play in the successful production of contaminant-free products. The article then explained that many of the world’s leaders would be presenting best practices at the PartsToClean 2009 trade fair. This was right in line with the scope of the content for Machinery Lubrication Magazine.

Bad Pitch #1: An industrial company sent a pitch via email that seemed to describe the results of a comprehensive case study on lubrication challenges in the beverage packaging industry. We responded positively and they then sent an article that was basically an advertisement for the company. No real case study.

Bad Pitch #2: An industrial consultant emailed a pitch that was just a forward of an email string between him and a client. The message read “The exchange of correspondence, below, relates to Machinery Lubrication. Please let me know, by 2 September 2009, if you are interested in publishing this material.”

The fundamentals of website marketing are architecture, content and incoming links. Spending time or money on anything else is a waste unless and until you:

• know all you need to know about how to optimally design a website for maximum search engine optimization (SEO), and
• have designed your site — and are continually updating and maintaining your site — in adherence to SEO “best practices” for architecture, content and incoming links

For most business owners today, this is not just about your website. It’s about the ongoing success of your business. The very survival of your business.

The playbook for the game of business has changed. In the age of the Internet, teams win and lose based on, in whole or in part, their ability to execute on the Web.

The first and foremost essential of Web execution is getting ranked highly for relevant keywords by the main search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing). Search engine rankings are driven by three things: architecture, content and incoming links. So build your winning Web strategy on a solid foundation. The only foundation that makes any strategic sense.

Architecture

This is about how the site is programmed and built. For example, each page of the website should have a keyword-focused summary about the page in the page title and meta description. Also, the URL for each page should be short and made up of real words that explain what is on the page. We’re talking plain English. Avoid formulas and cryptic symbols.

Search engines rank pages based on their relevance for certain keywords. Page titles, meta descriptions and URLs are given higher levels of importance than the words in page text.

Content

Does your site offer any information or tools that are unique? Helpful? Insightful? Interesting? This is referred to as content. The Wall Street Journal offers proprietary content on the publicly traded securities, financial markets and investing. People interested in these topics subscribe and, judging by the circulation, find value. Aspen Sojourner contains information about the people and happenings of Aspen, Colorado. People interested in these matters subscribe. Noria provides information about machinery lubrication and plant maintenance. Acquisition Advisors provides information about how to best go about quietly and professionally buying or selling a private company.

Search engines provide people with the information (“content”) they want to find. To begin winning the search engine game, you need to develop unique, relevant and authoritative content in the area of your focus.

Incoming Links

Search engines give higher rankings to websites and/or Web pages that are popular. Popularity is gauged, in no small part, by how many other relevant websites contain links back to it. We include the term “relevant” because the search engines have gotten smarter. It’s no longer a “more is better” game but one of quality of links. For example, if you’re an industrial manufacturing consultant and trusted experts (i.e., their blogs, articles and websites) in your industry link to your website or pages of your site, the search engines will give you a higher ranking than if you had links from random websites such as those of all your non-industry friends.

Of lesser quality but still well worth your time are links from business associates, business associations, directories and other membership organizations.

Do your plans for success include beating your competitors on the Web?

They should. The Web offers an amazing opportunity to expose more people to your company, strengthen your brand and add profitable revenue. But make the most of your time and energy, and do as Stephen Covey suggests: First Things First. In the game of website marketing that’s Architecture, Content and Incoming Links.

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Matt Bailey of SiteLogic provided his expertise for this article.

McGraw-Hill Research analyzed 600 firms in 16 different industries from 1980 to 1985. It found that business-to-business firms that maintained or increased their advertising expenditures during the 1981-1982 recession averaged significantly higher revenue growth – both during and after the recession – than those that did otherwise. In fact, “aggressive advertisers” during the recession saw their revenue rise 256 percent during the five-year period over firms that let their advertising expenditures slip.

In analyzing the 1970, 1974-75 and 1979 recessions, research firm Meldrum & Fewsmith discovered that firms keeping an aggressive advertising campaign maintained and increased their sales and profits. In January 1982, the Cambridge-based Strategy Planning Institute released a study showing that businesses increasing their advertising efforts during a recession gained an average of 1.5 points of market share.

Ad Cutbacks Convey Weakness
A recent study by Ad-ology Research found that advertising appears to play a key role in consumers’ views of how a business is doing. In fact, it found that 48 percent of U.S. adults believe that a lack of advertising by a retail store, bank or auto dealership during a recession indicates the business must be struggling.

Don’t Kill the Message, Change It
If any industry knows the importance of consistent advertising, it’s the auto industry. Despite its terrible predicament of late, it’s still advertising. It knows that if it stops advertising, it’ll find itself in even worse shape. But it IS responding to the changing economic climate. It’s rolling out campaigns such as “Lose your job and we’ll make your payments for six months.”

Other types of businesses are doing the same. Restaurants are promoting economical selections and health clubs are urging you to “bring a friend.”

Savvy Business Owners, Advance!
To be sure, now is not the time to retreat. In fact, it’s prime time to advance. Your competitors are almost certainly attempting to save a buck by pulling back their ad spending. Don’t fall for similar, faulty logic. Instead, it presents a prime opportunity for you.

Think of it as a long-term investment. Yes, it may hurt, but you’re in it for the long haul – to win. Find a way to continue advertising, and trust that you’ll get a handsome return on your investment.

Consistent, continuous advertising, marketing and sales are essential to building and growing a successful venture. You should not allow gaps or lapses. If you’re lucky, some of your competitors will become unwilling or unable to continue to invest in these important ways during challenging economic times and thereby provide you the opportunity to gain on them – if you stay the course.

Business owners don’t often enter through their company’s phone door, so it may be in disarray and you don’t even know it.

In addition to first impressions, there’s also an opportunity – each time someone calls – to strengthen your company’s brand image and educate the caller on your products, services and strengths.

What does your phone door look like? What is the harsh reality of your customers’ experience as they enter your company through your phone door? Are you taking full advantage of the opportunity with every single call? Here are some simple ways to make a big difference.

Secret Shopper: Do you really know what your phone personnel are saying every day to your customers? Why not have someone call your office – your salesman, or your tech support person – and pose as a customer or prospect. Record the entire experience. Large companies do this all the time. We did it at The Business Owner and found it VERY revealing and humbling. Afterward, we made some changes.

We used FoneFacts (www.FoneFacts.com). FoneFacts provides one – and only one – service specialty: telephone surveying. By posing as your customers, they professionally extract the “facts,” audit and recap the information you need to know. We simply called FoneFacts, told them what we do, explained the types of customers who call us, gave them our main phone number and suggested what to say. It was easy. Their customized software and recording technology allow them to provide you with any type of detailed reporting on key performance factors.

I’d suggest that you set them up to test your phone door regularly.

Here’s just some of what FoneFacts can do for you:

Employee Evaluation: Maximizing your employee’s telephone skills as they relate to your sales and/or customer service goals is an ongoing process of training and evaluation. FoneFacts specializes in recording, scoring and reporting your company’s telephony skills.

Competitor Analysis: If you have ever wondered about the sales ability and customer management skills of your competitors, FoneFacts can provide you with a detailed look at what others say and do. You will find that the competitive analysis goes well beyond product comparisons.

Market Research: Determining market awareness, opinions or knowledge of your product and/or service is often difficult. FoneFacts can call, record and report your market share.

Customer Surveys: Do you really know what your existing or past customers say about your product and/or service? FoneFacts will provide you with easy-to-evaluate facts that often surprise management.

General Analysis: For any other analysis your company might need that can be extracted by the telephone, FoneFacts helps you get the facts.

On-Hold Messaging: If you don’t use your on-hold time to sell, cross-promote other products and services, and drive traffic to your Web site – get with it. It’s easy, effective and economical. We used Brett Bond of Sound Advice (www.4SoundAdvice.com). He is tremendous. Sound Advice charges a minimal monthly fee based on the number of times you want to update the content playing on hold. With professional voice talents and varied music selections, Sound Advice puts together messages that reflect the image and information your customers need to know. No matter where you live, Sound Advice can upload new messages directly to your phones with the push of a button.

Virtual PBX: Are you ready to delve into new technologies to save big bucks and improve the way your system works? So-called virtual PBX appears to offer compelling services and substantial value. Using a single toll-free or local number and a virtual PBX such as GotVMail (www.gotvmail.com), you can get an auto attendant, call routing, voice mail, on-hold messaging, etc., all with no more hardware than a regular phone. In addition, you can have the service “find you” when a call comes in, such as by ringing your office twice, then your cell phone – all while the caller hears testimonials and/or service offerings (i.e., a custom on-hold message).

You also can have voice mail messages immediately e-mailed to you in text or audio file form. In addition to GotVMail.com, check out onebox.com and virtualpbx.com. Costs start at less then $10 per month.

Phones are critical to your business. If you don’t think so, just try unplugging it for a day, or even an hour. You’ve invested in your phones – so use them to their fullest potential. The great news is that today, with technology, you should be able to deliver a topnotch first impression and flawless service for very little cost. The trick is figuring out how to do it. The only solution is to either delegate the job to someone you trust or do it yourself. Either way, get it done. It’s just too important.

Brett Bond at Sound Advice can be reached at brett@4soundadvice.com or (918) 496-3950 X14.

I’ve made a ton of mistakes in my long career as a copywriter and direct mail consultant. I still do. But don’t tell anyone! You may not be a copywriter. In fact, I’ll bet you’re not. But you may need to write your own sales letters sometime,unless you can afford to hire me to do them for you! So I’ve prepared a list to help you avoid the mistakes I’ve made.

1. Not knowing your target market – or your audience.

All writing should target a specific group. You should know this group as well as the back of your hand. Know their hot buttons. What will make them say “yes” to your offer? What will turn them off? What motivates them? What concerns them? Who exactly are they? What age are they? What sex are they? Then write to that person. Write in language that person will understand. Use terms he or she will use.

2. Mailing to the wrong list.

This probably is the most common – and most fatal – error made in mailings. Spend as much time on researching your list as you do on the creative aspects of writing and layout, and on the research about your products, pricing, and offer. Unless the people on your mailing list have a desire or need for your product (or service), they’re going to be tough to convince, and probably impossible to sell. You might have a great service or product,but if you’re selling books, for example, you want people who read. A list of non-readers won’t get you any results. So don’t skimp on your list. Target it as tightly as possible. You may pay more for the ideal list. But the returns will more than pay you back.

3. Not having a clear goal in your writing.

Make sure you know where you’re going with each piece you write. Then stay focused. I write down my objective clearly and then paste it on the monitor of my computer. I refer to it often. I don’t want to lose sight of where I plan to go with the piece I’m writing. Whether it’s a letter or brochure, speech or radio spot. Stay on target.

4. Price before offer.

“Only $19.95!” No matter what you’re selling, a price has no meaning until readers know what they’re getting. Make sure you tell them about your product or service first. Build value in whatever you’re selling. Don’t bring up price first – no matter how great the price.

5. Price before benefits.

“Just $29.95!” may sound like a great price to you for a nice watch. But if you present it first – before showing exactly what the benefits are, it really won’t matter how great the watch is. Most of your readers will go right past your ad, or toss your letter out before they even see your product or offer. You need to tell readers what makes your price so great – in benefits they’ll understand.

6. Wrong price point.

There are thousands of theories on how to price your product or service correctly. Everyone thinks he or she knows how to price a product or service. But you should let the market set the price. You do this by testing each price point you feel will work, and seeing which one brings in not only the most orders but the most overall profit. In my copywriting business, I’ve tried several price ranges for various services. Through trial and error I’ve discovered what my own personal market will bear and, at the same time, how I can make a reasonable profit and keep my bills paid. Lots of books out there have complicated methods of figuring out how to price. But the best is simply what your own market will bear. Of course, if you distribute for a company with set prices, there is nothing you can do about it. But chances are they tested the prices before they set them. So you’re in the clear.

7. Inadequate testing.

There’s no reason to lose big money in direct mail. Everything is testable and you should test small mailings until one is clearly a winner. Test every single piece you mail out. Make changes slowly and only one at a time. Otherwise, you won’t know what change caused the rise or decline in your return rate. If you do not test, you will not succeed. You should have two or more letters to test against each other. Test everything. It’s a crucial step and I find that many people I talk with fail to do this.

8. Wrong objective to your marketing piece.

If you need to generate leads, don’t try to sell! Big mistake! What is your objective? To sell a product or service with the mailing or to get people to contact you for more information? You need to know that and write with that in mind.

9. Wrong headline.

The headline is perhaps the single most important element of your ad or sales letter – in fact, in most any marketing material. Solely on the basis of this one line, your reader decides whether to read on. I often write 100 heads before deciding on one! You’ll have to do the same, too. We professionals make it look easy. It’s not!

10.  Not telling your readers exactly what you want them to do.

I get letters all the time that clients or prospective clients have written. They ask me why their letters don’t pull. Usually, these letters don’t even tell readers what action is expected of them! You can’t sell that way! Tell your readers several times exactly what you want them to do. Be specific. Let readers know exactly what action you want them to take – tell them, and tell them again. Do you want them to call you? To send in a card? To fax you? Don’t just leave it dangling like one client did when he wrote, “If you’re interested, I’d love to hear from you.” Duh!

So there you have them. The BIG 10! The mistakes most often made by people who do business by mail. If you can avoid them, you can make a lot of money with direct mail.

Good marketing!

© Copyright 2001 by Susanna K. Hutcheson and Powerwriting.com LLC.

Susanna K. Hutcheson is a professional advertising and direct mail copywriter. She was the first copywriter to use the Internet as a place to market this type of service. Susanna has clients all over the world. She writes everything from Web site content to direct mail and radio spots. Visit her Web site at http://www.powerwriting.com. Her email address is powerwriter@powerwriting.com. Telephone: (316) 684-0457.