Time To Gear Up, Not Wind Down!

While I'm all for enjoying the holidays, make sure that you also take some time to think about how you can improve your business in the coming year. Now, I know that for many small business owners, money is tight. Therefore, don't think that the changes you make have to be major costly changes. Quite the contrary; it's actually some small changes that may make the biggest difference. Since, I'm not an expert on all things business but rather marketing, here's a look at a couple marketing-related issues you may want to meditate on during the holidays:

Target Audience - Are you targeting the right audience? Is an audience you're targeting as profitable? What are new target audiences that you can tap or re-direct your business' products / services?

Marketing Dollars - With people holding on to their hard-owned dollars more and more these days, you've got to do everything that you can to stand out. Therefore, it's a good idea to think about how you can plump up your marketing and advertising efforts.

Advertising Media - If you haven't been doing so throughout the year, now is the time to reevaluate how you're allocating your advertising dollars. If you been running a campaign--whether it's print, radio, TV, direct mail, outdoor, environmental, or Internet--it's crucial to determine what's working for you and what's not; don't make drastic changes if you haven't truly given the measures time to prove their worth (or lack thereof). However, if you've been conducting a marketing campaign and profits from it are stagnating, it's time to change!

Your Message - What you say to your clients through your marketing efforts and customer service interactions says a lot about your business. Make sure the message is still right for your company as it is today, or how you hope it to be in the future.

Times are different here in America in this day and age; the economy has changed the playing field quite a bit for small businesses. Therefore, planning and adapting for the times we live in is critical for the survival of your business. So, with that said, do wrap your mind around what will be new for your business in the new year. However, don't think too hard...these holidays only come one a year. Enjoy them!

From the Scribe, Etc. family to yours, we wish you a healthy, prosperous and fun new year!

Making The Most Of Your Marketing Moolah

Times are tough for many entrepreneurs. But you know what? This is the time to keep one of the Golden Rules of Business in mind: You’ve got to spend money to make money! So, while you may be slashing budgets to keep those profit margins where you’d like, slashing your marketing budget should not be on your “to-do” list at all. Why? Because if you don’t market to potential customers and remind them that you’re out there, ready, willing and able to serve them, times could get even tougher. You definitely don’t want that!

With that in mind, spend wisely. Here are a few tips on how to do just that:

• Choose marketing tactics that will help you to reach the greatest number of qualified customers (those who you’ve identified as being in your target market) rather than general audiences.
  
  
• Don’t skimp on the quality for quantity. You may be tempted to cut corners to get marketing pieces out to the most customers in the least amount of time and / or cost but don’t give in to temptation! Your marketing materials are a reflection of you / your business. Consumers know cheap, rushed marketing collateral when they see it…and they make a judgment about you based on it.
  
  
• Be selective on who receives printed materials; close deals with hot leads, give warm leads the necessary information to win them over, and exchange business cards / contact information with cold leads.
  
  
• Every potential customer does not need all of the marketing collateral you’ve created for your business. So, don’t hesitate to pick who gets what. If you sell face-to-face, provide a brochure instead of a full sales kit if possible. Or, if your brochure provides an overview of your services / products and you’d like to provide additional information, create a one-sheet that summarizes the content in the sales kit to accompany a brochure. If you sell via the Internet or over the phone, incorporate emailing attachments of your sales materials into your routine.
  
  
• Consider trying a new medium or a new form for your marketing. For example, just because you’ve always advertised in a certain publication, that doesn’t mean you have to continue to do so. If a source isn’t a heavy revenue or lead generator, apply the monies you would’ve spent on that towards another form of marketing or use that same advertisement and format it for use in alternate ways—advertising in less costly publications, as direct mail, in e-marketing, etc.
  
  
• Use your website! Unless your website designer charges for maintenance on your website or changes to the site, it won’t cost anything to add PDF versions of your marketing collateral to your website…or to add pages to your website with the content; if you opt to add pages to your website but want to control who sees that information, do not create an active link to those pages. Instead, have your web designer provide you with the URLs to each of the pages and send that to specific clients.

Whether you use one or all of the tips above, remember that marketing does not equal sales. That’s to say, marketing is necessary to attract clients and it can lead to sales but it’s not a one to one ratio. Therefore, be realistic about the expected return on your investment. One to three percent is a safe presumption for expected return. If you can truly pinpoint your marketing to the appropriate target demographic and if you’re able to expose them to your marketing message three or more times, you may be able to increase that percentage.

Sell More With Fewer Leads

Many fledgling entrepreneurs, and even some veterans, are misguided when it comes to generating revenues. They presume that more leads will lead to an increased number of sales, which will lead to greater revenues. Now, the business people who believe that aren’t wrong because if they can actually convert most of those leads into sales, revenues will increase. Therefore, it is a sensible way to do business. However, it is not the cleverest and certainly not the easiest. (It’s hard work getting those additional leads!)

So, the question is: If increasing the number of leads you have coming in isn’t the easiest and smartest way to generate revenues, what is?

One word: Upselling.

Whether you’ve heard the term or not, you are familiar with the practice of upselling because you’ve likely been up-sold on many occasions. Think about that last “buy one, get one half off” purchase you made, or the time when you purchased a warranty for a device that would’ve been cheaper to replace, or the last time you ate out and added on a salad or dessert at the waiter’s suggestion. In each of those situations, you were upsold. You were on the receiving end and you increased those businesses sales but now that you’re an entrepreneur, it’s time for you to do the upselling. Here’s how:

1. Sell a customer on an initial product.
   
   
2. Complete a quick mental assessment of your customer’s needs and the other products or services that you have available. Consider all services or goods that may compliment what you’ve already sold the client on or enhance the customers experience with whatever they’ve agreed to purchase.
   
   
3. Explain to the customer (briefly) how the additional product or service would be beneficial to them, providing more details as his or her interest grows.
   
   
4. Ask if the customer is interested.

That’s all there is to it! If you’re constantly attempting to upsell clients, you will increase your revenues; exactly how much your revenues rise, however, will depend on the price of your goods / services and the quality of your sales staff. Regardless it’s always worth a try to upsell a customer because it’s a heck of a lot easier and takes much less time to ask someone who’s already in the purchasing mood to buy a little more than to find people who are new to your products / services and try to sell them something. So, ask for the upsell and you just might receive!

Marketing Tools: Creating An Effective Brochure

Online, it’s your website that’s there to “sell” your business when you’re not. Offline, however, it’s most often your brochure. Therefore, it’s important not to just slap some pictures and information on a piece of paper then call it a day. Hardly! Though a seemingly insignificant part of your overall marketing efforts, brochures really can be powerful marketing tools...if you create them to be.

Here are some tips to help you create an effective brochure for your company:

• Determine The Purpose of The Brochure
  Since most brochures are tri-folds, which is often an 8.5” by 11” sheet of paper front and back, you’re limited on space. Therefore, the brochure should be as focused as possible. Decide what area of your business the brochure will focus on as well as who it will be target at and stick to it. Do NOT try to tell everything about your business and its products / services to everyone in one brochure. The effort will be futile. Instead, plan to create multiple brochures to address the different services you offer as well as your different target markets.
  
  
• Decide On The Action You Want The Consumer To Take
  Once you’ve decided on the purpose of your brochure, you need to decide what you want the reader to do. For example, are you trying to get the customer to call and order a product after reading the brochure? Perhaps the brochure is meant to entice the person to get more information by calling you—at which point you can work your sales magic—or by visiting your website. Knowing your action is key as it will help you to decide what information—text and images—should be included in the brochure and how they should be used.
  
  
• Keep The Content Simple
  Brochures are meant to provide a potential customer with an overview. Therefore, be direct with the copy that you use. Use short, catchy headlines and sub-headlines. Bullet points are great when attempting to convey large amounts of information in a limited space. Plus, bulleted copy is “glance-friendly,” which is perfect since most people only glance at brochures when they first receive them. Reserve longer copy for information that requires more of an explanation, such as helping the consumer to understand how a service works.
  
  
• Match Your Brand
  The design of the brochure should exemplify your company’s brand. The voice of the writing in the brochure should also match that of your other marketing material.
  
  
• Look Professional
  Your brochure is an extension of your company. Make sure it’s as professional as you are. Hiring professionals to create the brochure will produce the best results (with the least amount of stress for you). However, if that’s not an option, use a template provided by a printer to create your own.
  
  
• Remember: It’s Not All About You!
  The most important note to keep in mind when you’re creating your brochure—and any other marketing material—is that the content should convey consumer benefit while it educates the reader about your company / the goods your offer.

If you keep the above tips in mind, you’ll be able to create an effective brochure that can sell your business when you’re not there. After that, all you’ll have to do is get the brochures in the right people’s hands or make them available in key locations. You can handle that, right? Of course, you can. Good Luck!