Client Magnets Official Blog

Posts Tagged ‘targeted marketing’

What is your definition of opportunity?

Imagine that it’s a typical week for your website – the one that you have planned, designed, to which you have driven traffic, and through which you have made booking and registrations possible. Let’s assume that during a given week, 100 visitors cross into the realm of your site; 2 of them make the decision to purchase; however 98 of them leave without investing in your product.

What number captures your attention in the above example? Is it the 2 buyers? Will you wait for another 2 buyers next week? Will you count on luck, or “spray and pray” to deliver a sprinkling of voluntary customers next month, and next year?

Or, do you view the 98 departees as 98 new opportunities for sales?

In truth, your best profit potential lies in the 98 visitors who chose not to buy. If you plan well, after they leave, you will have 98 names and addresses that can lead to potential sales. All you need to do is have a plan for following them up. Just think – if you can get even 2 of those 98 to say “yes,” you have converted a larger percentage than you did with your sales page alone.

Here are some points to show why you should be following up:

• When you follow up with website visitors, you are targeting prospects who have already expressed an interest in your product. They clicked, which means, at the very least, that they are curious. For my regular readers, you know that this means you have gathered an audience of people with “raised hands.”

• Targeted follow-up correspondence answers questions that many of your visitors are not willing to ask (and many people have the same types of questions). Every time you answer a question, you take the opportunity to dispel an objection or a fear.

• Follow-up breeds interaction, which begs conversation. Think of your follow-up e-mails, postcards, and teleseminars as ice-breakers in a conversation that everyone wants to have, but no one knows how to broach.

• Marketing research doesn’t lie. It tells us that more follow-ups equal more conversions. Stay relevant in the minds of your prospects, and you’ll be the first person they turn to when a problem arises.

• Follow-up is a circular phenomenon. It gives you the information you need to devise better methods of follow-up. When questions are posed, and objections voiced, you are given valuable insight into the minds of prospective clients. With this information, you can plant more seeds and dispel more fears.

• Follow-up contact is an invaluable vehicle for conveying the idea of urgency. If a conference is set to take place 6 months from now, people will put off registration. But, if you can communicate a special offer through follow-up correspondence, you will light the fire to sign up. Often, discount deadlines and space limitations work well.

To increase conversions and increase your sales, it’s absolutely necessary you follow-up with all your prospects – even the prospects that don’t buy from you. You cannot follow up too often – you just need to vary your medium to keep your prospect engaged.

Don’t hesitate to use the invaluable follow-up for attracting and retaining clients. Leading prospects to your door is never enough – you must give them the incentives to revisit, and to invest.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet

When you’re thinking about revealing the price of your product or service, think about your target audience. If you don’t, you, you could be pricing yourself out of your audience.  I recommend tailoring your product or services to different audiences.  By doing this you can build several price points into your offerings.

Start with the High Price Points First
When you’re thinking about your target audience, there’s a good chance you may be looking at more than one group of people. If your product or service can appeal to many different groups of people with only a little modification, you’ve got a very valuable product on your hands. In the event that multiple groups may be interested in your product, start with the high price points first.

When you start with a high price point, you can discuss custom solutions, coaching packages and high-cost products with your audience. An audience that can afford to pay a high price point is probably expecting a lot from your product, including some personal attention. For example, you might want to offer a complete coaching package and book about marketing at a high price point.

Then, after you’ve ran your coaching program or presented your executive conference, you can create a package targeted toward a lower price point. Starting with the highest price point first gives you many benefits: it helps you fully-develop your product or services, it gives you an opportunity to ask for more, and it helps to justify the cost when you offer a lower-priced version to other audiences.

Offer Less for a Lower Price Point
After you’ve offered your high-price-point solution to the audience that can afford it, tailor a package for your lower-price-point audience. For example, if you offer a 5-day coaching package to your high-price audience, you may offer a weekend workshop or half-day coaching packages to a mid-range price point. If your product has enough diversity, you could even consider a lower-range price point consisting of just the written materials and a DVD or CD recording of your high-cost event. There’s no shortage of ways you can modify your product or services to suit a lower-cost audience and still capitalize on using the same materials and techniques.

Sales Strategies in Order of Price Point
When you start with a high price point and then offer a product to an audience in a lower price point, you can actually use the high price point to justify your price. Saying things like “People paid $5,000 for this product, but I’m not going to charge you that” gives you the ability to offer your target audience a “great” deal. Likewise, if you offer less for your less-expensive price points, the high-price audience doesn’t need to feel cheated or disappointed, because they got more for their higher price.

Consider whether your product appeals to people in multiple price points, and create custom packages that cater to each price point. By offering a high-priced version to an audience that can afford it, and creating a lower-price version for a different audience, you can increase your earnings exponentially with hardly any extra work!

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet

Many people don’t use their business potential to the full. It is relatively easy to focus on your every-day business; the sales and marketing, the product or service; and forget that you can leverage your business to perform far more than simple day-to-day operations.

If you’re ready to turn your business into a serious money-making venture, it’s time to think about hosting a Big Pay Day live event. Hosting a live event and turning it into a Big Pay Day is a perfect way to boost your revenue, increase your income and turn your business acumen into big dollars!

How do you monetize your event, and how do you create the opportunity to service your clients better and increase your earning capacity? Let me share a few of my secrets with you …

1. Launch a new product or service. You can also use your event to launch a new product or service for your existing business. If you’re creating a new product line or have new services to offer your clients, launching them at your event is the perfect time to introduce the products and generate buzz.

2. Launch a high-end coaching program. Your Big Pay Day Event is the perfect time to launch a high-end coaching program. You’re hosting an event because you are an expert in your niche. You could be sharing your expertise about your business field, or sharing the keys to your personal success. Use your event to share your expertise, and then launch a high-end coaching program to help attendees achieve their own success. It’s a great way to monetize your knowledge.

3. Turn your event into a product. Don’t forget that you can turn your event itself into a product. Take video of your event and launch a series of DVDs, or take the written materials from event and turn it into a book. Be creative, and think of ways in which you can share your event in the form of a new product.

4. Build your reputation in the industry. Building your reputation in the industry gives you two benefits: you can boost your existing business, and you gain the leverage you need to launch new products and services. While building your reputation in the industry might not yield direct revenue, it can lead to the acquisition of new clients, as well as creating additional business with existing clients.

Decide How to Monetize YOUR Event
When you’re considering hosting an event, think about how you will monetize it. You can use any one of these strategies, or a combination of strategies, to yield revenue far beyond the registration fees you’re charging people to attend your event. Start with one of these strategies and build on it, depending on what you have to offer and the resources you can leverage while you’re planning the event. Think about your business plan and your business goals. Ensure your strategies are consistent with helping you achieve your goals and your BIG PAY DAY!

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet

There are many ways to become a client magnet. Here are 20 proven methods that will help you to achieve astonishing business results.

•    Carefully choose the niche that you want to be known as an expert at.

•    Learn everything there is to know about your declared area of expertise. Go through the experiences and learn the lessons, connect with a mentor and then put it into practice to be successful. Only then can you teach and help other people to do the same.

•    Pick something that you’re passionate about; when you’re passionate, that really shows through.

•    You will make a greater impact in a place where you genuinely have some value to offer.

•    Realize that you don’t have to try to get every person you ever encounter to become a client.

•    Build your relationship with the people who have already “raised their hands” and expressed an interest in your product or service.

•    Focus your effort and energy on people who are pre-qualified to buy. It is more pleasurable to work with and for them than to try to convert people who will never be interested or will never be qualified to buy your services.

•    Approach your tasks with the right energy. A positive attitude will resonate with your clients; conversely, so will negativity.

•    Be a congruent model for success by focusing on and being committed to your prospects and clients.

•    Use one-to-many methods for connecting with clients and offering services, as much as possible.

•    Put systems in place to start building your list.  Then continue to grow and improve your lead generation systems.

•    Know the principles behind offering ethical bribes, such as a free report, and have processes in place to handle responses.

•    Incite a call to action by creating a sense of urgency for people to sign up with you or purchase your offer. Deadlines work well for this.

•    Don’t underestimate the value of affiliates and joint venture partnerships.

•    Be consistent. Systematize and automate your process so that you can make money even when you aren’t working.

•    Use articles, teleseminars and social media to increase your exposure and the perception of you as an expert.

•    Use quality software to build and maintain your websites and blogs.

•    Always offer an upgrade with every sale.

•    Build relationships by following up with the people you meet at networking events right after the event.

•    Offer something for free or do a product giveaway at an event, collecting contact information in exchange for entry.

Implementing just some of these strategies today will add many more prospects to your list and take you closer to a more profitable business.  When you’ve applied them all, you will be a true client magnet.

Tweet

Meet Bernadette’s online business mentor Yanik Silver.

Instant Profit Boosters – one of the things Yanik is known for is squeezing out additional revenue and profits from absolutely zero additional marketing budget, visitors or customers.

Yanik will show you how to look at your website and business to identify immediate profit increases.

Don’t miss this call!

My Next MARKETING* MASTERMIND Call

Tuesday, 22nd June, 2010

8:00pm UK Time (3pm EASTERN, 12 noon PACIFIC)

TOPIC:  *Instant Profit Boosters*

This call is FREE for my hundreds of Marketing Mastermind and Stepping UP! members. They also get the CD and transcript of this call at no extra charge, plus a tonne of other member benefits – such as access to our online members forum.

Not a member?  Click here to join the Marketing Mastermind Group today so you can take advantage of this call and all the other member goodies each and every month.

I look forward to “meeting” you on our call.

Best Wishes,
Bernadette Doyle
www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet

Relationship-building is a great way to leverage today’s social networking craze and build valuable relationships that can translate to business success. Relationship-building takes networking to the next step, and helps individuals develop meaningful relationships that may eventually become business relationships. Strategies for effective relationship-building keep in mind that relationship-building isn’t about what people can do for you, but about what you can do for people.

1. Recognize People for their Value
People want to be recognized for their intrinsic value as human beings – not as social connections. Recognize people for their value and individuality first and foremost. By building successful individual relationships with people, you can later leverage those relationships to form valuable business connections. But don’t make the connections about business from the beginning – make those connections genuinely about the connections, and about recognizing people for their individual value.

2. Don’t Ignore The People Not On Your “Target List”
One popular strategy that networkers use is to develop a list of targets – people they want to meet or spend time with at events or online. People who aren’t on that list may get ignored. This is a big mistake, and one of the primary differences between networking and relationship-building. When you target people, you miss out on other people who may have unexpected things to offer.

3. Give People Your Full Attention And Be Sincere
One of the most mortifying experiences that a person can have is shaking someone’s hand, only to realize that the person they’re greeting is looking over their shoulder to see who in the room is more important to greet. Don’t be keeping one eye open for the ‘important’ people when you’re building relationships.

Give everyone you meet your real attention. Make genuine connections with people. They sense the sincerity when you make these connections, and you never know when one of the people you meet has another valuable connection that they can provide you with – a connection you’d miss if you were too busy to move on to a more ‘important’ person.

4. Look At What YOU Can Do FOR People
When people are networking, they tend to evaluate someone and think “What can this person do for me?” Don’t ask what people can do for you. Ask what you can do for people. Look at ways you can provide value in other people’s lives. Offer valuable information, or helpful advice. Help them make connections that will serve them in business or their personal lives. People will return the favor, and may surprise you with the ways they can help your business. You’d never discover this if you were too busy asking what they could do for you.

Relationship-building does take more time than traditional networking, but you will make more valuable connections from it. Take the time to get to know the people you meet, and don’t dismiss people as being ‘unimportant’ because you’re too busy looking for ‘more important’ people. Every connection you make is valuable on a human level. It’s those real, true connections that will reap the rewards of success in the long term!

Tweet

Michael Dunlop is the successful young entrepreneur behind such blog sites as www.RetireAt21.com and www.IncomeDiary.com. His sites have upwards of 200,000 visitors each month.

How does he do it?

In his words, “It’s all about creative content.”

When you post a blog with unique content or present standard content in a creative and engaging way, you attract more people. The people who are attracted to your content will then link to it or tweet about it. This is what’s called link bait or tweet bait.

For example, Michael posted “the top earning websites in the world.” He listed what each site earned in the last year, and then broke that down to how much they made in a second. When people see that Google made $691 a second, it catches their attention and they link to his site or tweet the information.

This strategy can work in any niche. Whatever your area of expertise, you can post lists of top earners or “10 best …” Those readers who already follow you will share the information with their network, attracting even more people to your blog.

To save you the time of researching these types of lists, you can use a service such as www.TaskUs.com, which will do the work for you. They will provide you with all the information you need, which you can then copy and paste to your blog. For a reasonable fee, you can see a return that is worth thousands.

You can also post lists that reflect your own personal opinion. For instance, you might post a list of people who have influenced you in your career, or the top ten reasons why it’s great to work in your field.

Since a list of the best of anything is really subjective, some readers might disagree with your choices. Don’t be upset if that happens. It means that they are paying attention to you. The more comments that people post, the more conversation you’ll generate.

The point is to be creative. People are drawn to lists because they present interesting tidbits of information that are easily shared. David Letterman discovered that years ago – his nightly top ten lists have long been shared around the world.

When you offer creative content in the form of link bait or tweet bait, you will begin to attract more readers to your blog. As the number of people linking to your site increases, so does your internet ranking. And it happens instantly. So start thinking creatively about some lists that will give your readers information that they simply can’t wait to share.

Tweet

IMAGINE THIS: You need to transfer water from one location to another. So, you set about filling a bucket with water from the hose…but straight away, you notice that the bucket isn’t holding water. A series of holes are allowing the water to quickly drain out.

Now you have two choices: you can continue on with the Swiss-cheese bucket, running as quickly as you can to get from point A to point B, while retaining as much water as possible; or you can take the time to plug each hole, one at a time, until you have an implement that saves you trips, time, and wet feet.

Your business is that bucket. If you pour money into finding the one big thing that will draw in a stampede of people, you will waste much of your investment.

But, if you take the time to give attention to each detail of your business, find flaws, and plug those flaws (one at a time), you will arrive at an effective system for making product sales and booking reservations for your next live event.

Maybe you’re carrying out many of the necessary points, but they need to be tweaked for effectiveness. Or, maybe there are areas that you haven’t even thought about. No matter your booking saboteurs, here’s a list of strategies for plugging your bucket’s biggest holes:

• Follow up: Following up with every website visitor (specific to their buying or non-buying activity) can be indispensable in establishing connections that result in future bookings.

• Ask for feedback: When you know why someone didn’t book a seat for your workshop or buy your product, you can apply that information to future marketing efforts. People aren’t going to offer feedback unless they’re prompted to do so.

• Make yourself available by phone: Use an open phone line to quell fears, answer questions, and to make yourself available to the portion of the public that doesn’t feel comfortable booking or purchasing online.

• Simplify your sales page: Everyone that considers opting in (via the web) isn’t going to have a PhD. Make it easy to sign up, and keep the language simple enough for a 10-year-old to understand.

• Use a stick strategy: When taking reservations for seminars that are weeks or months into the future, stay in regular contact with your customers, to avoid buyer’s remorse (which may result in cancellations).

Those are the biggest plugs for buckets leaks, but here are some smaller, yet still important, remedies for common leaks:

• Establish a database: If you operate on the assumption that you simply need to put the information out there, and people will buy, you will lose bookings and sales. Know who you’ve marketed to, and use that information to implement the five major bucket leak fixes.

• Use a case study: Your first successful event or launch might be the hardest to accomplish, but once you do it, be sure to showcase it. Use it as example of what your future clients and attendees will experience.

• Plug holes before working on visuals: Too often, business owners spend money on having logos designed, images uploaded, and catchy headlines written – all before they have a solid marketing plan in place. It’s always more cost effective (and generally effective) to find a plan that works, and then wrap your public image around that.

• Make special offers that are specific: Discounts offered to the general public don’t make anyone feel special, but when you offer free items, or discounts, to an exclusive group, they’ll feel like parts of the club (and more inclined to be parts of your workshop).

Often, entrepreneurs are so busy with attraction methods, that they forget how to treat prospects once they’ve attracted them. Work on your bucket list. Tackle one hole at a time, repair it, and then move on to the next. Before you know what happened, you’ll be carrying bucket loads of clients and bucket loads of money!

Tweet

Event registration can be a nerve-wracking process. Registration is typically a cyclical period of peaks and valleys that can be both inspiring and depressing. With the right mindset and some insider techniques, you can safely navigate the event registration cycle and reach your target number of attendees.

Approach Registration with a Positive Mindset
Event registration is a cause for apprehension in both experienced event planners and newcomers to the event world. No matter how many times you host an event, there’s always a question of how well-received the event will be, and whether you’ll get enough attendees. Over time, you learn the normal cycle of event registration, and the peaks and valleys in registration matter less. But the key to dealing with the event registration process in a rational way is to approach your event with a positive mindset, and the confidence that you can successfully market your event.

Dealing with “the Dip”
There comes a point during every event registration cycle where there’s a dip in registration, and numbers aren’t where you want them to be yet. It’s normal at this point for doubts to creep in. Event organizers may wonder if they’ll get the numbers they want for registration, or whether the event itself is worthwhile. The key to successfully navigating “the Dip” is to maintain a positive mindset, and recommit to marketing the event.

When the dip happens, get creative with your marketing. Send out another touch. Try using a different marketing avenue to reach potential clients you haven’t touched recently. Recommit to marketing your event, and the dreaded “Dip” will sort itself out. And remember – this is a normal part of the event registration cycle.

Consider a Preview Tele-seminar or Event Materials
If registration isn’t quite where you want it to be, consider a creative way of reconnecting with your audience and convincing them to register. One thing you can try is a preview tele-seminar. During a tele-seminar, you can talk about things you’ll cover during the seminar, or invite people who have attended a previous seminar to come on and speak about their experience. A preview tele-seminar can generate the buzz you need to overcome a lull in registration.

Alternately, or as a companion to a tele-seminar, you can review the materials you’re including with your event. If you’re planning a low-budget event but you’re giving away a lot of manuals and handouts, it can actually suppress ticket sales. Conversely, if you’re planning a high-budget or multi-day event, you’ll want to provide a thick, chunky manual so people feel like they’re getting a value in what’s being delivered. Consider adding or subtracting event materials to boost registration.

The keys to successfully navigating through the event registration cycle are to maintain a positive attitude and get creative with marketing. Don’t let a dip in registration discourage you; instead, re-commit to marketing your event in creative new ways. By adding new touches, you can boost registration and reach potential attendees you might not have encountered previously. Most importantly, keep telling yourself that you can throw a successful event, and you will throw a successful event!

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet

Lists are a big part of marketing a product or event. Your list consists of everyone with whom you have marketing contact, either in the form of mailing addresses, phone numbers or email addresses. If you have a limited list, you have only a small pool of ready marketing contacts. However, you can still plan a successful event without a big list by partnering with people who have good lists.

Find a Joint Venture Partner with a List
If you don’t have a big list, you don’t have to avoid planning an event or selling a product; you just have to get creative about how to do it. For example, if you’re planning an event but you don’t have a list, partner with someone who does have a list and who can help promote your event. You might ask someone with a good marketing list to speak at your event, in which case your guest speaker will promote the event to their list.

Select Someone Whose Audience is Complementary
One of the best ways to promote an event with someone else’s list is to select a partner whose audience is complementary with yours; not necessarily in competition. A competitor probably won’t want to share his audience with you, because then there’d be nothing to prevent you from swooping in and taking the audience away. However, a complimentary business owner might be happy to cross-promote your event to his audience, because it is another way for him to provide value to his audience, and he may find it to be a money-making opportunity.

For example, if you’re planning an event on teaching businesses how to effectively utilize the Web for marketing, you probably won’t want to partner with a competitor who offers the same information to clients. Instead, you might want to partner with a more traditional marketing firm, who can then offer your Web-specific information and services to their clients. Or if you make and sell artist’s painting supplies, you might want to partner with someone who sells canvases; not someone else who makes or sells supplies. Think about who might have complimentary lists, and contact them about partnering in your event.

Be Clear about Terms
If you do bring on a partner to help with list marketing, be clear about the terms of your agreement up front. You’ll need to negotiate commissions and percentages on your joint venture. Have a proposal ready when you begin your discussions with potential partners, and know how much you’re willing to negotiate. If you’re not clear enough up front, you may find that you miss out on an opportunity to build your own list, maximize your income from your event or find yourself in the middle of a disagreement with your new partner. Know how much you and your event are worth, and make sure your new partner can respect that!

Even if you don’t have a big list yourself, partnering with the right person can give you plenty of instant contacts, and help you build a list of your own. Don’t let a lack of a list hamper your marketing efforts. Find a good partner with a good list, or even multiple partners, and move forward to make your event a success!

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet