Category: Advertising
Add Value to All You Do
While reading some very informative material recently, I found myself inspired by a concept that enables a person to soar to higher heights. The concept of adding value to everything you do, when applied to specific areas of a person’s life, can bring that person to be highly sought after by those receiving the added value. The material I was reading focused on business and what this concept will do for the success of a business. Another way of looking at this concept is in the idea of doing more than is expected, or doing more than that which you are compensated to do. When doing this a person will be “weighed” against others who do not. In comparison, the person who adds value to all he/she does will be sought after to the degree that there will be keen competition for his/her service. As a person becomes more and more recognized for doing more than he/she is compensated to do, he/she will begin receiving more and more compensation for their services.
There is an additional benefit that comes to the person who exercises this concept in his/her business; the development of that person’s strength. In nature, do you suppose the strongest trees are those that are protected from the storms and hidden from the sun? This isn’t the case. The one that stands out in the open and bears all of the winds and rain and is shone upon by the blistering sun is the tree that develops the strength to withstand the most violent weather. This also is the case for the person who goes beyond expectation to deliver added value in everything he/she does. This is the person that becomes strong enough to succeed despite the adversities that one is sure to come up against in his/her business. The fact that most people are delivering as little as they can get by with, serves as a great advantage to you when you deliver added value. One who delivers as little as he/she can, may rest assured he/she will receive the same.
I hope this information will add value to all of your experiences.
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12 Handy Tips for Generating Leads through Cold-Calling
Cold calling can be a great way to generate quality leads. You get to speak to the gatekeepers and stakeholders, and you get a great insight into their requirements and influences.
But cold calling is an art-form. It can be daunting, itís always a lot of work, and you always need to make a good impression. So you need to do it right. Following are some tips which will help you do just that.
1) Record everything
Always write down all details of every phone call. Write down any names and titles you learn. Not just the name of the person youíre trying to contact. The receptionist’s name can be vital to remember as they’re often gatekeepers. Write down when you called, and when you said you’d call back.
2) Use a database or spreadsheet to record everything
Youíll never manage by hand, and Excel spreadsheets arenít user friendly in the long term. If youíre prepared to invest in a real CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool, thatís a great idea. If not, you there is a cheaper alternative. I created my own database using Microsoft Access. Visit https://www.divinewrite.com/downloads/contacts and jobs.mdb to download a 208KB working copy for FREE. Youíll need Microsoft Access 2000 to run it. Iím no database expert, so itís not a work of art. Itíll certainly get you started though. (TIP: When using the database, press Ctrl + ; to enter todayís date.)
3) Always call back when you said you would
Donít let them down. They may not even remember that you committed to calling back. But if they do, and you donít meet your commitment, youíll lose valuable credibility and respect. And wherever possible, work to their schedule. You’re here to help them, not make things harder.
TIP FOR COPYWRITERS: If youíre an advertising copywriter or website copywriter, ask to speak to the Marketing Manager (or if the person who answers the phone says they don’t have a marketing manager, ask for “the person who looks after your advertising & website” – all businesses have that person – it’s generally one of the owners).
4) Always try to get on with the gatekeepers
Receptionists and personal assistants have great influence, and quite often do more of the real work and decision making than the person youíre trying to contact! Make friends with them and youíve got a foot in the door. (But donít waste their time or crawl ñ they get a lot of that!)
5) Keep it short ën sweet
When you do get to speak with someone, keep it short ‘n sweet unless they want to talk a lot. The purpose of the phone call is to get their attention, let them know you’re there, get their name and contact details, and assess whether they have any requirement for your services. (TIP FOR COPYWRITERS: If youíre an advertising copywriter or website copywriter, you might have called about brochure writing and then find out they need web writing.)
6) DONíT HARD SELL!!!
Donít pressure people or make it hard for them to get off the phone. Tell them what you do and that you’d like to send them an email with a link to your website with samples and testimonials (or with an attachment containing samples), then leave them to it.
7) Follow up with an email
If you have permission, always send a follow-up email ñ and do so immediately. Be specific in your subject line. (TIP FOR COPYWRITERS: If youíre an advertising copywriter or website copywriter, use the words “advertising copywriting” or ìwebsite copywritingî in the subject. Most people don’t get many emails with this in the subject line, so it’ll be distinctive and probably wonít be snuffed by their spam filter if they have one.) Address the email to them (e.g. “Hi Joe”), keep the email short ‘n sweet. Include only the essential info, make it easy to read and conversational, and bold the important words or phrases as they’ll probably only skim it. Include a link to your website, reference the day and date you talked on the phone (and thank them for that time), mention any names you learnt (e.g. receptionist’s name, especially if the receptionist gave you an email address but you didn’t actually get to speak to the decision maker), tell them that you’d like to follow up in a few weeks (assuming the conversation indicated that this would be a good idea).
8) Follow up with another call
If the lead looks promising, make sure you follow up. And when you do, always mention the day and date of the original call, as well as the fact that you sent an email. Give a quick summary of who you are and what you do, and say that you’re just calling to make sure they got the email. Most of the time, youíll find the lead will talk to you about your services, if only to remind themselves of what you do!
9) Donít expect to make too many calls
On a really good day, I’ve made 80 cold calls. Most days, though, you should be very pleased to average around 40. Youíll spend a lot of time playing telephone tag.
10) Donít leave message
Unless you absolutely have to (or youíve just about given up on the lead), donít leave messages. Most people have trouble returning phone calls from people they know and like; returning phone calls from someone whoís trying to sell them something isnít high on their list of priorities.
11) Donít expect to qualify too many leads
Depending on your business, if you get one good lead a day, you’re probably doing very well.
12) Donít expect immediate conversion
Unfortunately, most leads take a long time to come to fruition (up to 2 years). So you have to be prepared to be patient.
Good luck and happy calling!
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10 Ways To Ensure Your Flyer Avoids The Bin
Flyers are an excellent marketing tool to promote a club night or event. They are commonly used for student promotions throughout the country.
You want your flyers to travel all over town, only you’d probably prefer it wasn’t in the dustcart or stuck to the bottom of someone’s shoe. What steps can you take to avoid this?
Here’s a few hints and tricks to help your flyers avoid the trash:
1. Don’t miss the boat before you start. Double-check local
Fresher’s week and 2005/06 term dates with your local universities, as they vary nationwide.
2. Make sure there’s a reason for students to keep your flyers. Can you include a drinks’ promotion, discount or special offer in the copy?
3. Always include the key facts. Students need to know what,
when, why, how and where. List all relevant info, such as prices, times, dates, venue or address, contact details and your url.
4. Always double check your spelling and grammar before you
go to print.
5. It may sound obvious but do a spot check on the reliability
of your delivery agents. You’ve got a great deal on print, don’t blow it with distribution.
6. Remember to leave your flyers in the places where your target student hangs out, read Meet the students for some helpful placement ideas.
7. Strong visuals or topical humour help students to remember
your promotion. They may even stick your flyer on their bedroom wall; beats the Simon Cowell poster their mum bought them for Christmas.
8. Ask a few local students their opinion of your sample flyer
designs to see which one has the most market appeal.
9. Want to increase sales and profit? Handing out the flyer
yourself can maximise your budget. Your personal enthusiasm and a friendly face can work wonders.
10. Er, try not to stand near a bin.
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A Guide To Advertising In The Media
The media is a powerful thing — the average person spends an enormous amount of their life consuming it in one form or another, and will spend a significant percentage of that time looking at, listening to or watching advertisements. If you want to use the power of the media, though, you need to know what you’re doing.
Advertising in Newspapers and Magazines.
There are two kinds of advertising you can get in newspapers and magazines: classified and display. Classifieds are the small ads towards the back of the publication, while display ads can be almost any size, from a small corner of a page to a massive double-page spread.
If there’s a publication you’re interested in advertising in, either go to its website (the rate card section) or call its advertising department to find out the rates it charges. Now pick your jaw up off the floor. Yes, advertising in the print media really is that expensive, and for most home businesses it probably just won’t be that economical.
There is, however, an exception: niche and trade magazines. If you’ve ever looked around in a newsagent, you will have seen just how many magazines there are out there, filling every conceivable gap in the market. You need to find the magazine that people who are interested in your services might read. For example, if you’re a wedding photographer, look for a magazine called ‘Your Wedding’, ‘Bride’, or something similar. Advertising in these magazines will be far cheaper than placing an ad in a general-audience publication, and far more likely to actually get some responses.
Advertising on the Radio.
Wherever you are, the chances are that there’s a local radio station. Once your home business grows to a decent size, you might consider buying some time on it.
Really, though, the only kind of home business that can benefit enough from radio ads to justify the cost is one that does anything to do with cars. Since radio is almost entirely limited to use as in-car entertainment now, you know that almost everyone your ad reaches will be a car-owner, and so might be interested in what you’re offering. If you offer something that people need cheaply or even for free, you can get a big response.
Unfortunately, that response could be a little too big — thanks to the time-sensitivity of radio, you’ll get mobbed the next day, and then everyone will forget you again. Radio advertising offers the listener no opportunity to keep your ad and refer to it later, or to find it again in the future. You will find that any ads involving a phone number are spectacularly useless.
Advertising on the Television.
Unless your business is getting pretty big, this would be quite a bad idea. You’d have trouble producing and airing an ad even on local cable channels for less than $10,000. Of course, if there’s a market for your product and you’ve got the budget for this, you could take a gamble and make a mint. The home businesses that tend to do best out of TV ads are ones that have a ‘unique and useful invention’ product with easy-to-demonstrate benefits — think infomercial. Research shows that you can sell almost anything given a 60-second ad, a free phone number and a price point of $19.95.
Advertising on Billboards.
Here’s one that gets overlooked pretty often, but can be very effective if you do it right. Billboard ads are relatively expensive, but they do generally stay up for a long time, and they can be very specifically targeted to an area — the one where they’re physically located. You’ll have the best results with this if you can put one near enough to your business that it could say ‘turn left at the next junction’, or something like that. Phone numbers are, again, pretty useless, although you could have some luck putting a website address up there.
Advertising at the Movies.
Finally, here’s one that often gets overlooked. If you turn up to the cinema early, you might have seen that before the big-budget ads, ads for local businesses are run. This can be a great place to advertise relatively inexpensively in quite a high-profile way, and it works especially well for takeaway food businesses.
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7 tips in creating publicity for corporate events
Organising corporate events can be exciting and interesting but simultaneously stressful and nerve-racking. This is especially true when corporate event managers are faced with a dilemma in balancing the need to create an enjoyable and beneficial event, and at the same time entrusted with the responsibility to create publicity for it.
Nevertheless, if the right approach is used, creating publicity for corporate events will become an easier task to manage. The following tips will provide you with an insight on some of the best practices used in creating publicity.
1. Itís always a good idea to work in a team, and delegate the task of creating publicity to a particular team member. This way, you wonít be caught up in the legwork, but rather be involved from an event manager perspective. Your responsibility then is to make decisions and guide others in getting things done for you.
2. Selecting the right person to delegate this task to is also an important factor in making your event a success. It is essential for this person to possess the necessary contacts with media companies, such as television stations and newspapers, way before the event kicks off.
3. Use short copywriting for direct mailers or newspaper advertisements. Good editing and good writing go hand-in-hand to create impact for your publicity pieces. Also, thick information packs are out of the question, unless specifically requested by the recipient.
4. Try not to use copywriting that may be a tad too creative or flowery. Your audience has no time trying to figure out your message, and it is best that you send them something direct and concise.
5. Although it may be common sense to include a contact number or an email address in your publicity pieces, you may be surprised that many corporate event organisers actually overlook this. Keep this in mind so that you can be contacted for further information.
6. No one wants to read outdated information. That is why your press releases should be kept as relevant and up to date as possible.
7. Always stick with the truth when you are answering questions from the media, or holding a press conference. Many corporate event managers tend to exaggerate and end up presenting an event that falls short of expectations.
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A Good Autoresponder
How many free autoresponders have you tried? Really how many? And how many emails did you get through using them? How do you know? How many people opened your followup message?
My point here is that if you have no clue for the answers above you probably are not operating a followup campaign successfully. These are crucial element that must be explored when you are choosing an autoresponder.
Some good steps to take to ensure you are getting what you need out of a autoresponder include… Compare your autoresponder with those of top marketers, chances are they are using the best in the business. You can’t go wrong with this step!
Other observations you might make are related to spam filters. Have you ever gotten an e-mail and seen something like this…”F`R`E`E” Yes this is a good way to beat the spam filters as they won’t read Free they will read something totally different. However it can be time consuming going through your article and finding which words are “Danger” words. This can go along way in your marketing efforts. So make sure you find an autoresponder that has a spam rating feature… these features will automatically show you where in your article your “Danger” words are.
Another crucial element of e-mail marketing are your statistics. How many e-mails are being opened can tell you if your subject line is any good or if you did a good job branding your name. If you know your e-mail statistics you are one step in the right direction in optimizing your potential sales. Finding an autoresponder that shows in depth analysis with your followups are also key.
What should a followup contain? Good question… My personally experience suggests directing your subscribers to a full article located on the web. There are some good reasons for this. You can create an excitement teaser in the followup e-mail and beg your article to be read on the web. There is also the chance that since you have an article archive on the web many subscribers will often read more than just your original article. Your subscriber might not be interested in one article but they may find what they are looking for browsing through your previous articles.
Broadcasting! So your subscribers are finished receiving their original followup series… now what? Find an auto responder that allows you to broadcast an update or an offer to the entire subscriber list. Don’t let your subscribers go to waste, this feature is a must!
Remember not to bore your hard earned subscribers. Present them with a problem and offer them a solution! Its that easy…
Find my recommended autoresponder on my marketing blog!
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