Are you executing a well thought out marketing strategy or just hoping your customers will find you? Here’s a tip for making sure you are taking a sound approach to attracting the right audience.

Take a look at your revenue numbers. Print a customer list in revenue order from highest to lowest. Add up the first 80% of your earnings – you are likely to find that 80% of your revenues are coming from 20-35% of your customer base. Take some time to capture the characteristics of those customers (products/services purchased, quantities, frequency of purchases, industry, company size, buyers, etc.).

Now take a look at the bottom 20% of your revenue list and total up the top 80% of that list. Take a look at the characteristics of those customers.

You’ll find the characteristics are quite different – yet many businesses make the mistake of marketing to that lower 80% — making the assumption that more customers is better than that top portion of your list – the right kind of customers.

To use your marketing dollar wisely determine the marketing tactics, message and delivery method that are best to attract your ideal prospect. This exercise will help you get you started in redirecting your efforts for better results. Ciao.

First, if you have been in business for over a year and tracked your marketing-related expenditures you could easily calculate your ‘cost to acquire one customer’ or ‘cost to sell one product’ by dividing your annual sales and marketing costs by the number of units (or customers acquired) sold.

The next step is to take your cost to sell one unit or acquire one customer and simply multiply it by your unit sales or customer acquisition goal. The result of this simple computation will give you a rough estimate of what you need to invest to meet your sales goals for the next year. It is quite common to invest 5% of your anticipated revenues on your marketing efforts.

Remember the 80-20 rule. 80% of your results will come from 20% of your effort.

Ciao.

Goals are critical to your success. If you haven’t written your goals, you’re still just wishing for success. When creating your goals use the SMART formula. Ensure that your goals are, (1) Specific, (2) Measurable, (3) Achievable, (4) Realistic, and (5) Time bound. Clearly state what you want and be realistic within current resource availability.

Your goals should include financial elements such as annual sales revenue, gross profit, sales per sales person etc. However, they should also include non-financial elements such as units sold, contracts signed, clients acquired, articles published etc.

Once you’ve set your goals, implement processes to internalize them with all team members such as reviewing them in sales meetings, displaying thermometer posters, awarding achievement prizes etc. Measurements for success should focus on the process of continuous improvement and enhancing performance. Innovate or evaporate. In Step 7 – Developing Your Marketing Budget. Ciao.

It’s better to work on getting multiple exposures to a smaller target group than to spread your efforts and have fewer exposures to more people. Here are some examples of different mediums: – Newspaper ads – Posters – Contests – Local circulars – Seminars – Television ads – Signs – Sweepstakes – Door-to-door – Teleclasses – Radio ads – Banners – Trade shows – Yellow pages – Articles – Classified ads – Newsletters – Charity events – Networking – Infomercials – Billboards – Take-one box – Telemarketing – Magazine ads – Special events – Sales letters – Flyers – Email – Movie ads – Ezine ads – Postcards – Doorhangers – Social Networking – Media releases – Fax broadcasts – Brochures – Gift Certificates – Word-of-mouth – Website – Sign picketing – Business cards – Catalogues – Air Blimps – Public speaking – Window displays

The trick is to match your message to your market using the right medium. It would do you no good to advertise your retirement community using a fast-paced, loud radio spot on a hip-hop radio station. This is a complete mismatch of the market, message, and medium. Success will come when there is a good match of these three elements. Tomorrow – Step 6 – Setting Your Sales and Marketing Goals.

Your marketing message not only tells your prospect what you do, but persuades them to become your customer. Communications should relay how you look, act and perform that differentiates you from everyone else. This is your USP – unique selling proposition – it is formed from your positioning statement – the market, competition, customer and niche you’ve chosen to concentrate on.

You should develop two types of marketing messages. Your first marketing message should be short and to the point. Some may call this your 10 second introduction. It’s your response to someone who asks you, ‘So, what do you do?’ The response should include – what you do, whom you serve and the benefits they reap.

The second type is your complete marketing message that will be included in all your marketing materials and promotions. To make your marketing message compelling and persuasive it should include the following elements:

• An explanation of your target prospect’s problem. This demonstrates your message and material are relevant and less likely to be junked.
• Proof that the problem is so important that it should be solved now, without delay – this is sometimes referred to as a “WIIFM – what’s in it for me” statement. You may have a primary message and one or two supporting messages.
• An explanation about why you are the only person/business that can solve your prospects problem – this is your differentiation statement.
• Features and benefits of your solution – with a heavy emphasis on benefits – these statement will begin to show the customer the value of doing business with you.
Additional materials to support your sales and marketing materials and strategy might include:
• Examples and testimonials from customers you have helped with similar problems.
• An explanation about prices, fees, and payment terms.
• Your unconditional guarantee.
• Special offers should be specific and limited in time frame to relay urgency.
• Cross promotion with other stores, vendors or partners.
• Offer specials during your down time.

Once you’ve determined your messaging – next is deciding on the medium that will deliver the message to your target. We’ll talk about Step 5 in our next post. Ciao.

Step 2 – Understand Your Customer

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Knowing your customer intimately is the first step to predictable sales growth. Until you know first, who your customers are, secondly, what they want, and third, what motivates them to buy, you can’t prepare an effective marketing plan. This is will become your targeting strategy.

Don’t confuse ‘wants’ with ‘needs.’ People don’t necessarily buy what they need, but they’ll most always buy what they want. This is often true.

To really get to know your customers you’ll need to ask yourself questions such as:

Current customer segments that are successful?
Past efforts and/or segments that aren’t working and why?
How does my potential customer normally buy similar product?
Who is the primary buyer and the primary buying influencer in the purchasing?
What kind of habits does my customer have? For instance, where do they get their information (i.e. television, newspapers, magazines, internet)?
What are my target customer’s primary motivations for buying?
What economic, industry pressures are they facing?
Are their customers and vendors dicatating a course of business for them?
What does the trending seem to indicate?

We will continue to look at marketing with Step 3 – Your Market Niche Definition. Ciao.

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Step 1 – Understand Your Market and Competition

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If you try to sell something that people don’t want, they won’t buy it. It’s that simple. A big mistake that many small businesses make is to sell a product or service without first understanding the market and what it wants (not what it needs). This is where you get the feeling that you’ve tried everything and nothing works. You are marketing to the wrong people, have the wrong message or offer and/or are delivering the message in a place where your ideal customer does not see it.

A profitable market consists of people who have wants that are being unmet, so much so that they perceive the unmet want as pain and will be eager to buy your solution (product or service).

To get an understanding of your market and to be able to define your positioning strategy you should know the answers to questions like:

Are there segments in my market that are being underserved or developing a new need?
Which of the segments of my market, for my product or service are able to pay what I need to charge?
How much share of that market do I need to capture, to just break even?
Is there too much competition in the segment of my market to be competitive?
Who are your competitors? Size and dominance in the market?
What are the weaknesses in my competition’s offering that I can capitalize on?
What are their strengths?
Which customer base are they aimed at?
What is their positioning the market?
What are their objectives?
Does my market want or value my unique competitive offering?
How would you define your market standing: Experimental – ahead of it’s time, Performance related – appealing to a special group or Value related?

Take some time answering these questions. Make sure to answer firmly from the perspective of your prospect or customers. This is about meeting their needs – not yours. Have some of your team members answer the same questions and come together to discuss your responses. Finally, make sure to respond by taking into consideration the perspective of your prospects and clients — they may know less (or more) about your offerings and competitors than you are giving them credit for. This might be a great time to invest time or resources in some market research to verify your standing and that of your competitors.

Watch for Step Two: Understand Your Customer.

The point to remember about selling things is that, as well as creating atmosphere and excitement around your products, you’ve got to know what you’re selling.  

So, what are you selling?  I normally get great answers that relate to the the proficiency of the sales person and their process.  …’Knowing their products/services so they can speak in detail and being able to answer all the questions posed by the prospect’ are the most common responses.

But I believe it’s more about the part of the sales process that frequently gets forgotten or not investigated to its fullest potential.  It’s the part of the sales process where we, as sales people,  are asking questions of the prospect and listening intently for needs and wants.  It’s about the part of the sales process where the prospect is telling us exactly what will make them happy about this purchase.  We then are able to use those wonderful sales skills to provide the solution that fits their needs perfectly – because we have taken the time to ask and listen and have applied our expertise to match those needs with the correct product or service.

Paying attention to the emotion attached and pain solved will provide you with marketing messaging ‘gold’.  These statements should be used to message to your target audience.  It shows we understand the needs of our prospect and goes a long way in creating a great relationship with our prospect.  Ever heard this one? – They don’t care how much we know until they know how much we care.  Get into your prospect’s world — look at the situation from their perspective not from the perspective of selling something.

I think that’s what Wilde refers to when he says that we must know ‘what we are selling’.  We will be more successful in our sales and marketing efforts if we are selling a solution to a problem, an answer to a need, a response to a want.  Indeed, this is the value we can provide and it will be rewarded with a sale in most cases.

As a consumer, this type of sales process allows us to buy and not be sold to.  We both like that.  So, ask questions, listen closely and you’ll find what you’re really selling — it’s first, convenience, ease of use, beauty, health, quality, etc. and secondly, it’s the widget or a service you had available all along.  But this subtle change makes everyone happier. Ciao.

Location, size, message and contact information are important.

• Location – place signs at or near intersections or place them where traffic can slow to get the pertainent information  — consider city regulations on sign placement.  When you find an ideal area – place signs at a 90 degree angle to the drivers and within a few feet of the ground for the best sight lines from drivers.
• Size –  standard sizing for yard signs is 18” x 24” – they can be made larger, in special shapes and made for hanging or ground placement with a wire or stand.  Again there may be city regulations to follow.
• Message – your message should be clear, brief and quickly understood.
• Contact Info – make this easy – a phone number and or website are the most common contact methods and can be chosen to track your responses from your efforts.  A temporary phone number or voice mail could push the callers to a website page to capture their contact information.

When using yard signs, it is best to not neglect them after you place them in a customer’s yard or along side an intersection or road. Go by your locations regularly to make sure that they stay up and are in good condition. Nothing looks worse than an outdoor sign that is tattered, faded and unreadable. It will portray a negative image on your company so be sure to have some spares and replace it with a new sign.  Make sure to remove them when you are done.

See our Twitter special on signs this week!!