Tag: internet marketing

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Entrepreneurs

Cinnamon Rolls, Breast Cancer and Your Business — How Doing Good Can Grow Your Business

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It can make good marketing sense to partner with a nonprofit or cause.

Consider what my marathon friends did when they were raising money to participate in the 3-Day Walk (you walk 60 miles in 3 days to promote breast cancer awareness and raise money for research). They approached a local restaurant called Backburner, which was famous for their cinnamon rolls. For a week, every time someone bought a cinnamon roll, they donated $1 to my friends for their walk.

I personally hadn’t heard of the restaurant, but when I found this out, my husband and I went and had breakfast there (complete with a cinnamon roll of course!).

So this turned into a win-win for everyone. My friends won because they were able to get donations for their walk. Susan G Komen won because they got more money to donate to research. The restaurant won because they got additional promotion and good will, helping out a good cause. And I won because I got to eat a yummy breakfast and discover a new restaurant. (We’re ignoring the calories I consumed there.)

More than ever before, consumers are socially-minded. In many cases, they want to know the businesses they patronize are also socially- minded. Connecting your business to a good cause is about more than just making yourself “feel good”; it can also make good business sense. 

So what are some ways to start? (Other than writing a check.) Well, here are a few ideas you can use:

1. Jenn August did a whole telesummit around giving money to various causes. You could do the same.

2. If a summit is too much work, just do one teleclass, charge a low fee, and let people know proceeds will also help support your cause.

3. Have a sale and let people know a percentage of proceeds are going to support a nonprofit.

4. Offer to give a product of yours for free if people donate. Or, put together a special teleclass only for people who donate. (I would put a time frame around this if you do – for instance, allow 48 hours or a few days to donate.)

5. Put links to your favorite nonprofits in your newsletter or on your website. (But don’t make it so prominent you encourage people to click away from your site and not support YOU.)

6. Give away your time. If you’re a service professional and you find your client pipeline has slowed down or dried up, donating your time to a nonprofit can be a good way to jump-start your business. The exposure can help you find new clients, and you can make it known you support their cause. (And don’t forget to get a testimonial.) Now, be careful with this strategy. I’ve used it myself, but make sure you don’t go too crazy donating your time or you could end up getting really stressed- out when you client work picks up again.

But whatever you do, make sure this is coming from the heart. People can sense if you’re not being sincere, so make sure you truly do believe in the cause, if you’re going to publically help support it.

Categories
Sales & Marketing

3 Tips to Creating a Free Gift Your Ideal Clients Actually Want

If you’re like many entrepreneurs, concern (or even distress) about the size of your email list is a major issue. And for good reason. 

Your email list — which is a list of folks that have given you permission to email or otherwise contact them — is the foundation of business success. Those are the people who are interested in building a relationship with you and eventually may turn into a customer of yours. The more people on that list, the easier it is to build a profitable, sustainable business. 

So how DO you grow that list? Well, one tried-and-true strategy is to come up with a free gift or “taste” of your offer in exchange for getting your ideal client’s contact information. (An example of this is a special report or a video or audio recording and you set up an opt-in page to collect the name and email address in exchange for giving them access to that content.) 

The problem is, how do you figure out what the best gift should be? Below are 3 tips to help you do exactly that: 

1. Create your gift around what’s keeping your ideal client’s up at night. No matter what it is you sell, there’s one major problem keeping your ideal client’s up at night that your products or services would solve. That’s what you want to focus on — what I call the “gateway” problem. 

This is important to remember — while I know some of you reading this offer very complicated and thorough coaching or healing programs that end solving lots of issues your ideal clients have, they didn’t actually buy the your program because of ALL those results. They bought it because of ONE major issue they were having, and now that your program solved other problems, they’re really excited about it but that’s not what caused them to buy your program in the first place. 

If you try and get too cute or complicated in your initial gift, your ideal clients aren’t going to be that interested in giving you their name and email for the gift (much less actually going through what you put together). 

2. Spend some time crafting a hooky title for your gift. The title is what is going to catch their eye and encourage them to read more about what you’re offering for free. 

So how do you create a hooky title? Go back to what’s keeping your ideal clients up at night. For instance, you’re a weight-loss coach, you could focus on 5 foods that make you fat. Or if you’re a business coach you could focus on 5 mindset traps keeping you from building a successful business. 

Now, what’s keeping your ideal clients up at night is only the first step. As you can see by my examples there are a couple of other tips to help you craft a hooky title: 

* Putting a number in there. It helps to have X tips or steps or secrets or strategies. Adding that detail makes it more specific for your ideal clients plus it implies you’ve laid out the information in a way that makes sense for them to consume. 

* The smaller the slice, the better. Notice I focus on 5 foods that make you fat or 5 mindset traps. Not EVERYTHING that is making you fat or EVERYTHING that is keeping you from growing a business. One piece of the puzzle. Again, that specificity makes it very clear exactly what your ideal clients are getting, and the more clear they are, the more likely it is they’ll want it (if it appeals to them). 

3. Don’t be afraid to make it content-rich — but don’t give away the store. Okay, so how on earth can you do that? 

The best way to do this is to completely answer whatever you promised them you would answer, but your answer should open up another question. So, for the mindset traps, you tell them exactly what the mindset traps are, but if they want more personalized help to avoid them, they’ll need your product. Or you share what the 5 foods are, but then you may need something to replace those foods (or maybe eliminating those foods isn’t enough and they’ll need more help) and that’s where your program comes in. 

The problem I’ve seen with content sharing is either people clearly hold back information so it’s obviously incomplete (which irritates your ideal clients) or they share too much information and their ideal clients end up feeling satisfied and have no need to take the next step (EVEN if it’s a false sense of satisfaction). 

Again, this can be helped if you narrow down what your gift is covering to a very small piece of the puzzle. If you do that, you (hopefully) won’t share so much your ideal clients feel complete, and if you answer that small piece completely, they’ll feel like you gave them a great deal of content.

Categories
Entrepreneurs Sales & Marketing

3 Ways to Put Fresh Spins on Old Marketing Concepts

Are you struggling to find a new twist for your advertising or marketing campaigns? Tired of sounding like everyone else and want something new and fresh? Never fear. Here are 3 ways to get those creative juices (and new ideas) flowing.

 

But before I get to those, there are a few things you should do to prime the pump, so to speak. What this does is clear your “conscious” mind so your muse will have an easier time sending messages to it.

 

First, review all the information about your product or service. Then, write down all the benefits (why customers would buy those products or services).

 

Now write down all the concepts you have used before or you’ve seen other people use before. This is an important step. You need to move the old stuff out of the way to make room for the new. Writing those concepts down helps do this.

 

Okay, now you’re ready to start generating some fresh ideas.

 

1. Take another look at testimonials. Testimonials are always great selling tools, but that’s not why I want you to do this. Customers may come up with a key benefit you never thought about before, and that may become the foundation for a new campaign. Scour every testimonial you can get your hands on and see if you can find something new. You might want to even try calling a few customers for quick interviews. (Don’t have testimonials? Now might be a good time to solicit some.)

 

2. Study other ads. Flip through a magazine or turn on the television — except this time focus on the ads and not the content. (I know, I know, this is counter to what you usually do.) Which ads do you like? Why do you like them? Are those ads doing something you can modify for your own campaign?

 

The key word is modify, not copy. I don’t want anyone committing copyright infringement. What I’m talking about is using an existing ad to jump-start your own ideas. Maybe you really like the use of an evocative photo with a single caption. Or the use of repetition in Mastercard’s “Priceless” campaign. Or the idea of turning the “money can’t buy everything” on its head (which is essence of that campaign). Can you use that concept in your campaign?

 

Another resource for great ads is Communication Arts Magazine. Each issue showcases some of the most creative and beautiful ads found anywhere.

 

3. Check out what a completely different industry is doing. For instance, let’s say you sell software products to computer professionals. Techy market, right? So, pick up a yoga magazine. See how that industry communicates with its audience. Now try selling your product using the same language and concepts. Take it a step further and brainstorm ways your software product is similar to doing yoga.

 

Why this works: One definition of creativity is taking two everyday ideas and combing them so they become something original.

 

This is a very powerful way to jolt your own thinking and start your muse down a completely different path, one you might never have discovered before.

 

A variation on this idea is to force a connection with a random object rather than an entire industry. You ask yourself, how is your software program similar to a stuffed dog? Write down everything you can think of, no matter how silly or foolish. Sometimes the foolish ideas are the ones that lead to the great ones.

 

A final note: If at all possible, don’t rush this process. Give your muse some time to ponder and play with these techniques. I know it often seems like ideas pop out into your head out of thin air, but usually that only happens because you’ve given your muse the necessary tools and “incubation time” to make it happen.

 

 

Categories
Sales & Marketing

Are You Creative?

Quiz: Are you Creative?

Worried you may not be creative, or you may not be creative enough? Take this quiz and find out just how creative you are.

Get a piece of paper and number it one to seven. For each question, write down the corresponding letter of your answer.

1. When you come across a rose, you immediately:

A. Smell it.

B. Quote every rose poem you can remember.

C. Write your own poem.

D. Sketch the rose.

E. Step on the rose.

2. One of your dreams in life is to:

A. Write a novel.

B. Become a painter.

C. Travel the world.

D. Climb all the famous mountains.

E. Just once, get everything done on your to-do list

3. Your desk:

A. You have trouble finding as it’s buried under everything including the kitchen sink.

B. Resembles a natural disaster.

C. Is a bit of a mess, but you know where everything is.

D. Is basically neat — you use the stacking method

E. Is in perfect order — everything in its place.

4. The person you admire most is:

A. Einstein.

B. Walt Disney.

C. Your mother.

D. Jane Austin.

E. Anyone who can get everything crossed off their to-do list.

5. You consider yourself:

A. Extremely creative.

B. Creative.

C. Somewhat creative.

D. A little creative.

E. About as creative as a turnip (actually, come to think about it, turnips may be more creative then you are).

6. You get new ideas:

A. All the time.

B. Several times a week.

C. Several times a month.

D. Once or twice a month.

E. You dimly recall getting a new idea when Clinton was in office. Or maybe it was the first Bush.

7. You dream in:

A. Color.

B. Black and white.

C. Both black and white and color.

D. You can’t remember now.

E. Nothing. You don’t dream.

Scoring:

Throw out all your answers except the one for number five — “You consider yourself:”. If you answered:

A. Extremely creative — Then you’re extremely creative.

B. Creative — Then you’re creative.

C. Somewhat creative — then you’re somewhat creative.

D. A little creative — Then you’re a little creative.

E. About as creative as a turnip — then you’re about as creative as a turnip.

Okay, this was a bit of a trick. But it’s true. How creative you think you are corresponds with how creative you are.

There was a famous study done that illustrates this. A big company wanted to increase creativity in its employees. So it hired a group of consultants to come in. The consultants started by thoroughly testing all of the employees. They discovered the only difference between the employees who were creative and who weren’t creative was how creative they perceived themselves.

Even more telling was what happened to the group that wasn’t creative. The consultants focused on helping them nurture their creativity, and at the end those employees were actually more creative than the ones who had initially considered themselves more creative.

And that means you too can become more creative. In fact, how creative you become is entirely in your own hands.

Creativity Exercise — Assumptions

Ready to become more creative? Here’s an exercise.

Write down all the reasons why you’re not creative. Go on. Write them all down. Every negative reason you can think of. Things like:

I’ve never been creative in my life.

I haven’t had a new idea in over a year.

I don’t have time to be creative.

Now reverse those negative assumptions and make them positive. Like so:

I am a creative person.

I have lots of new ideas all of time.

I don’t need time to be creative because I already am creative.

Do this every day and see what happens. This is a great way to start getting rid of those inner demons that keep all of us from realizing our true potential.

Categories
Sales & Marketing

3 Mistakes Conscious Entrepreneurs Make When Launching a Product or Program

Of all the marketing tools out there (and make no mistake about it, product launches are a TOOL — nothing more, nothing less) product launches have got to be the most frustrating, misused and misunderstood tool.

There is nothing that will bring an entrepreneur to their knees faster than a busted launch. Worse, even if the launch ISN’T a failure, it’s still the cause of more worry, anxiety and sleepless nights than any other marketing tactic I’ve ever seen (and trust me, I’ve seen a lot).

However, since launch failure certainly is one of the top concerns (not to mention a bad launch makes everything else look worse) I thought I’d take some time today to discuss the top 3 mistakes entrepreneurs make when launching a product or program.

Mistake 1: They rush into the launch.

Let me explain what I mean by this because it’s not as clear cut as you might think. While I do think giving yourself some time and space to launch something properly (especially when you’re doing it from scratch) is a good thing, if you have a big enough list to meet your sales goals, you can rush your launch as much as you want.

Where I see the biggest problem with rushing your launch (other than just keeping yourself up nights working on all the promotional pieces) is when your list is small and you are dependent on affiliates or joint venture partners to meet your sales goals. If this is the case, you are pretty much guaranteeing your launch will fail.

You see, affiliates and joint venture partners are busy people. They have their own products and services to promote plus they too have agreed to help other people. The less lead time you give them the more likely they will tell you they can’t help you promote.

However, there is another way to look at this, which actually leads into mistake number 2.

Mistake 2: They don’t know the numbers.

Here’s how this mistake plays out. You’ve been hearing about these 6 figure launches, but you’re just starting out — you don’t expect to have a 6 figure launch. You would be happy with 50 people in your program. And with 200 people on your list that should be doable, right?

Well…

You do the launch and end up with 8 people in your program. You’re crushed.

Now the reality is with your list of 200, that’s a 4 percent conversion of your entire list. You should be THRILLED with that conversion.

But, because you don’t know the numbers (specifically the CONVERSION numbers) you’re just looking at the end result — how many people actually bought. And if it’s lower than what you wanted (or expected) you’re going to be disappointed.

But if you know the numbers, then you’ll know going in how many people you can expect to buy. And you’ll ALSO know what to expect regardless if affiliates help you promote or don’t. And that’s a really powerful way to keep yourself from getting too disappointed or frustrated.

Mistake 3: They either give up or decide not to send “one more email.”

This happens if they either get too discouraged from lack of sales or they just start feeling “icky” about the whole launch. At that point, they just stop.

And when you stop, you’ve also just stopped getting any more sales. And even if you’re stopping because you’re feeling sort of icky, you’re probably going to feel even more icky when people stop signing up for your program. (You CAN cut down the number of emails, just as long as you know which emails to cut.)

So you need to know going in you’re probably going to feel like giving up somewhere in the middle. If you know this, you can stand firm when it happens and make sure you still send that “one last email.” (Who knows, that could be the email that turns everything around for you and to think you almost didn’t send it!)