Category: Sales & Marketing

If I were your prospective customer, why should I do business with you above any and all other options? Why would I be an absolute fool to buy what you sell from anyone else but you? That answer should be clearly articulated in the form of your USP.

What you need to know…

A USP is the single, most distinct and important benefit a business owner provides to their clients that’s different from their competition. It’s absolutely critical to not only create an effective and highly compelling USP, but to use it in every piece of marketing you develop, and in every form of communication you use with your clients and prospects.

Why you need to know this…

Your USP, working in tandem with your elevator pitch, creates a huge competitive edge for your business. Developed properly, it will separate your business from your competition, eliminate them in the minds of your prospects and have them saying to themselves that they would be fools to do business with anyone else but you.

For example, most business owners place the name of their business at the top of their business card. That’s the worst thing you can put there. No one cares who you are or what you do. They only care about the benefits your product or service offers to them.

Instead of a jeweler’s business card saying “John’s Jewelers,” what if it said this…

Discounted Diamonds – Unmatched Quality, Untouchable Price, Unbeatable Guarantee

In just a few words, would you feel like an absolute fool if you bought a diamond from anyone else but this jeweler? That’s the power of a well-designed USP.

The cost to you if you fail to act…

Do you have a Unique Selling Proposition?

Do you use it in every piece of marketing you create?

Do you have it prominently displayed on your business card?

If you don’t, you’re losing market share, a massive amount of potential revenue and the opportunity to dominate your market.

No matter the industry your business is in, in this digital age, content marketing is a must for all ventures if you want to attract and engage more customers, build your brand, boost referrals, reduce marketing costs and enjoy other benefits.

However, for many entrepreneurs, knowing how to go about content marketing without being too “hit and miss” is a challenge, particularly without having any experience in the area. If you want to really achieve great things this year with your content, read on for some tips you can implement straight away.

Be Clear on Your Goals and Intended Audience

Firstly, it is important for you to be very clear about what your goals are for your content marketing before you start creating. You need to know what you want to achieve from your blogs, videos, infographics, books, and the like, so that you can produce content that is most effective.

As an example, perhaps you might be keen to:

• Increase the number of leads you have
• Build more of an emotion connection with customer
• Market a new product or service to a new demographic
• Boost your level of repeat business and/or customer referrals

No matter what your objectives are, if you understand them before you begin to create content, you will be much more likely to achieve the results you’re after, and won’t spend unnecessary time, money, and energy on campaigns which aren’t suitable for your needs.

Of course, it is also vital that you know exactly who it is that you’re targeting with all of your content too. By having a thorough understanding of your ideal customer for each piece of content, you have the ability to tailor things according to their interests, location, preferences, and more.

Being clear about demographics will guide when you deciding

• Which information to include in your content
• What style and tone to use
• Where to put the content to reach your audience
• What format it should be in

Use a Variety of Content Types and Lengths

To succeed with your content marketing, it also pays to opt for variety amongst your work. You should experiment with the different types of content that drive traffic, rather than sticking with one type all the time. For example, you can mix things up by:

• Writing blog posts, articles, books, white papers, and ebooks
• Creating infographics, cartoons and other graphics
• Participating in forum discussions
• Running workshops, courses and webinars
• Producing advertisements, both online and offline
• Posting regular updates on social media sites

In addition to the different types of content, keep in mind that it is also beneficial to create content of varying lengths. These days, short-form content, such as Twitter posts and videos, is particularly popular since people have little time and are inundated with content every day. Short-form pieces help to funnel prospects and current clients through to longer pieces you create, and help to increase engagement too.

Make Sure All Content Provides Value

Lastly, if you want your content to be effective, it is essential that everything you create provides value for the people who read, watch and/or listen to it. The content that achieves results is typically easy to understand, full of personality, and funny, inspiring, motivational, and/or educational. It is important that you steer clear of content that is overly technical, convoluted, stuffy, boring or, of course, offensive.

It helps to be conversational in the words and tone used, and to avoid using business babble or complicated data. If you need to include information that is relatively complex, look for ways to give specific examples or use analogies which will help to make concepts clearer for your target market. As well, create things which make people feel in some way if you really want to have an impact. The most memorable and shareable content tends to make people laugh, cry, or feel excitement.

Another way to make sure your content is effective is to be careful about how you present it. This is particularly the case with written text. Be aware that most consumers are overwhelmed with the amount of information thrown at them all day, and are incredibly busy, so don’t have the patience or the time to read every word that might be in front of them.

As a result, your written content should be structured in a way that makes it scannable for readers. Break blocks of text up into short paragraphs, and use lots of headings, bullet points, graphics, and the like to make information more easily digestible. You should also ensure there is plenty of white space on a page so it doesn’t look too crowded, and only ever use fonts that are clear to readers of all ages and not so small that people have to squint.

Article Contributed by Jennifer Livingston

Video marketing–the incorporation of videos into your marketing strategies in order to promote your company, product or services–is becoming more popular in today’s marketing world. As a matter of fact, sixty-five percent of executives visit the marketer’s website and thirty-nine percent contact a vendor after viewing a particular video. “How does this particular marketing technique achieve such a profitable result?”, you may ask. The answer is through the personable quality that video marketing conveys about a business. That’s right! When businesses include video marketing in their other marketing strategies, viewers attain an amiable feeling about the business. Actually, here are seven of the many ways in how video marketing constructs a more personable attribute in your business.

#1: Video marketing allows you to tell it all!

First of all, customers like businesses where they can see and hear the business owner. People want to get an overall impression of you, which, if positive, will build trust and loyalty in your customers. Additionally, video marketing gives you the opportunity to mingle in some behind-the-scene action. Keep it real by showing how employees are working diligently to produce the products and services that they are interested in purchasing.

#2: Video marketing allows you to respond.

When doing video marketing, you, the business owner, are given the chance to respond to customers’ emails and negative comments. Use the strategy to gain rapport with your customers. Show some personality in your response messages. Enhance it with some humor. Everyone enjoys a little laugh in everything!

#3: Video marketing allows you to tell a good story.

When it comes to your brand, especially its uniqueness, involving a brief history is an excellent idea. Customers find pleasure in hearing a story behind a particular product or service. They will appeal to a journey. With video marketing, you can add drama, engagement, connection to your customers, and change the way people feel, think, and behave regarding your product or service. Telling an upbeat story about your product or service will instill a positive relationship with your customers.

#4: Video marketing allows you to be more engaged with your customers.

When we do anything in life, engagement is the number one technique that holds attention. Using in-video links, quizzes, surveys and forms will motivate customers to take desired actions. Engagement techniques will keep your customers focused on your video, and can ultimately result in click-through rates and fortunately even sales.

#5: Video marketing allows you to share testimonials.

Before you shoot your video, gather real feedback from previous customers who have already tried your product. At some point during your video, share these testimonials. Get permission to include the customer’s full name and location, and share the specific details of the endorsements. This is an exceptional approach as it shows potential customers that your product or services really works. Do not fake any references! The truth will always come to light and you want to keep an honest reputation for your business at all times.

#6: Video marketing allows you to talk directly to your target.

In video market, your audience is your targeting group. For example, if you are marketing your tax preparation services, your target audience may be individuals between the ages of 25 and 70 and small businesses. From this targeted group, you are able to know how to talk, and what images and links to use. Using professional adult language and financial terms, images, and links will be your focus.

#7: Video marketing allows you to be user-friendly.

What if some viewers are hearing-impaired? That is where best quality closed captioning services come in. This particular service transcribes the audio of your video, giving every customer the convenience of enjoying your video.

These seven are only a few of the variety of ways that video marketing helps businesses project an affable impression to their customers. Video marketing is able to capture viewers’ attention and deliver an effective message for the success of the business. Video marketing drives click-through rate and sales if done in a friendly, professional, and personable way.

Article Contributed by Rand Brenner

Marketing your products or services doesn’t mean you have to spend big bucks. “Riding the Coattails” of a well-known brand is a licensing strategy to get instant market recognition for your products or services.

This strategy taps into the consumer recognition of a well-known brand. Many types of companies – consumer goods, entertainment, technology and others – spend hundreds of millions of dollars promoting their core brand and creating a big consumer market.

Licensing lets you lease their brand equity, and use it to sell your products or services. You’ve got a lot of licensing options with this strategy. For example, licensing a sports franchise brand lets you take advantage of their broad consumer awareness. You get the added benefit of live games and on-going advertising without the cost.

I used this strategy with a client who invented a new portable “bar and grill entertainment center” that was ideal for tailgating. Rather than spending lots of money promoting it “generically”, I helped them license several big college and professional football team brands. They produced versions of their product with different team logos and colors. Their products got immediate access to the big retailers, instant customer recognition, ongoing promotional support from the televised football games, and multiple “brand” promotions from the other licensing partners.

Licensing a big brand is also a way to multiply your marketing dollars. Often times, you can tap into their ongoing promotional and advertising campaigns, sometimes for little or no money. A few years ago I worked with a toy company and negotiated a license with a major studio for their animated movie releasing in the fall. To promote the movie, the studio wanted products to give away at the movie premier. In return for supplying some toys, my client got extensive media coverage in newspapers and on radio stations as part of the movie promotion.

Building market awareness and consumer demand is this day and age is a very expensive undertaking – especially if you are a small company or start-up with limited resources. You can use licensing to tap the resources of a bigger partner. If you are looking for a way to get promotional muscle behind your products or services, then “Riding the Coattails” of a well-known brand could be the right licensing strategy for you.

Rand Brenner is the founder of Licensing4Profits.com, an on-line resource for information, education, training, and real world advice on how to make money licensing intellectual property rights. 

Article Contributed by James Pointon

SMS marketing is gaining momentum, and it’s not likely to stop. An incredible 75% of people say that they would like to receive marketing via text message, and that’s far too many potential customers for you to ignore. Small businesses should be jumping on this bandwagon – there’s no size limit on how to make this work for you. Here are some actions you can take in order to boost your SMS lead generation and sales.

Make it personal

A generic marketing text can sometimes fall far from the mark. Customers want the personal touch, so make it seem as though you are talking directly to them. Using their name is a great start, and will grab their attention.

But you can do even more to make it personal. Consider targeting customers based on what they have purchased from you in the past. If they bought a watch, for example, you might send them an SMS about the latest bracelets you have on sale that match their watch style. If your customers are parents and you know that one has just become pregnant again, start sending them offers on newborn products. Keeping a thorough database on your customers can help with this.

You can set up a sales funnel process, too, so that any customers who have bought a certain product get reminders about new ones. Then if they respond, give them a second prompt for something else. If it’s working, keep doing it.

Be specific

Customers aren’t likely to pay attention if you give them vague offers. Telling them, “log on tomorrow for big savings” isn’t going to incite much excitement. Give them something to log on for! How about telling them what is on sale, and for how much? “Log on tomorrow for 50% off all apparel” is a much better draw.

How can you make this even better? By adding a sense of urgency. “50% off on all apparel on our website tomorrow – 24 hours only!” tells the customer that they need to act immediately or miss their chance. Otherwise, they might put the message aside for later and forget all about it.

Be exclusive

SMS customers need a reason to opt in to your marketing. Give them exclusive offers so that they can save where others can’t. You can do this by sending them a specific discount code that only they will know about. It’s most effective when combined with an existing sale. If you have 20% off on certain items, offer a further 10% off with a specific SMS code.

You can also use exclusive deals to hook in new sign-ups for your SMS list. Let them know that they will get a special discount code as soon as they sign up and you will watch your list grow rapidly.

Aim for immediacy

People tend to open texts immediately, but they might not open emails until the next day. That’s why it is important that you use SMS marketing for immediate effects. Tell them to log in now – not later. This is fantastic for you as a small business owner, because it means that you can manage sales more effectively. As soon as you need that sales boost, put out the word. If your sale isn’t attracting many buyers, you can send out an SMS to give it a push before it ends.

Make sure that you also think about timing during the day. If you have an online shop, you might send a message at lunchtime, when those who are at work will be able to take a break and browse your shop. If you have a restaurant, it’s better to text right before dinner. You can also use the service to send mass texts to employees and make sure everyone is on top of their tasks.

Stay top of mind

When you don’t have a sale on, you might still want to send out a message every now and then. Perhaps you’re a crafter who sends handmade goods. Your items take a long time to make and sell out quickly. To help create more buzz, try texting your database an hour or so before your newest listings are due to go live.

This will encourage buyers to check out your online store and will also remind them that if they want something, they should buy it fast. You’ll create a culture where your items sell out as soon as they are listed!

Using SMS marketing can seriously help your small business grow. Done right, it can even turn you into more of a medium business.

Author’s Bio: James Pointon is a blogger deeply interested in boosting businesses’ marketing opportunities through original and untapped channels. At the moment, James is sharing his ideas for business promotion working at OpenAgent – experts on real estate market.