Tough Detroit Business Marketer Shares a Marketing Diversification Secret
How many eggs are in your basket?
Tough Detroit Business Marketer Shares a Diversification Secret
How many eggs are in your basket?
How many different marketing campaigns are you implementing right now? It is much too risky for a wise business owner to rely on only one type of marketing.
What would happen if it failed? A business owner could lose his or her shirt and be driven out of business! Even a very successful single marketing campaign can have pitfalls.
If a business owner clings too tightly to a single campaign (no matter how successful), then s/he might never find out what other methods of promotion could prove to work as well—or even better—than the one upon whom s/he is relying.
It’s far safer and wiser to devote a portion of your precious resources (money and time) to each of several different marketing projects. Channeling your resources to various promotional efforts allows you to have multiple points of marketing “impact” at the same time.
If any one effort fails, the remaining projects can continue working to keep the flow of new prospects and ongoing business coming through your door.
Many businesses use only one or maybe two ways to attract new clients. Sometimes, when a business first opens its doors, the owner will place a few mediocre advertisements in the local paper and then expect that they will generate a lot of traffic. This rarely is the result.
People don’t go out of their way to shop somewhere unfamiliar unless the business offers something so unique or valuable that it would succeed regardless of the marketing effort used. Believe me, this doesn’t happen very often!
Here’s what will work together to produce greatly increased profits for your business: Four or five programs designed to bring in new customers; six or more marketing efforts designed to sell to existing clients; and the use of “up-sell” and “back-end” product offerings.
The Seven Musts of marketing include personal contacts, direct mail, Internet marketing, company brochures, advertising, public relations, and the education of clients. Don’t rely on just one single program. Diversify and grow!
Who is in your sights?
Understanding that you can’t market to everyone is very important. You don’t want to waste your valuable time and marketing dollars.
There are people who won’t want what you are selling and perhaps others who can’t afford it. It is a lot easier to sell to people who already have bought a similar product and either want more of it or want a different or improved version.
Known users of products/services like yours are easy to locate in your library’s reference database. They also can be located on the Internet, in the many news groups, “list serves,” or blogs to which people with specific interests belong.
Look at the magazine racks at you local bookstore for subject specific publications. Folks buying these magazines are hot buyers, they want everything they can get their hands on relating to their subject of choice.
Is your product or service complimentary? Is someone else approaching these folks with ads in those publications with a similar product or service?
Find these groups. The people who belong to them are “high-purchase probability” prospects. Buy a contact list and start your marketing process. Do whatever it takes to reach these contacts.
How many things are competing for your attention right now? In today’s world, we are overwhelmed with far more information than ever before. TV (both network and cable), radio, the Internet, hundreds of newspapers and magazines, faxes, e-mails, cell phones, PDAs, multiple 24-hour news and sports channels, newsletters, etc., etc., etc. Even worse, each source of information is screaming louder and louder to get our attention.
All of this information and “noise” makes it very important that you target your marketing precisely to the people who actually want to receive it.
I am totally convinced that precise, targeted marketing is indispensable for every business. When you know exactly who will buy your products or services, you can save thousands of marketing dollars by directly contacting only those people who have an ‘affinity’ to buy what you are selling.
Target your marketing where you know that your typical customer will be looking.
Example: I wrote a marketing plan recently for a group of financial planners who had developed a system of advice for couples who are going through a divorce.
We did some research and found out that over 14,000 couples divorced every year in the metro Detroit area, where we are located.
Even if we were only to sell the planners’ services to 1.25% of these couples, at an average profit of $750.00 for the services and materials involved, the revenue in the first year would be approximately $273,750.00.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. The real income is made on the “back-end” financial planning commissions from the insurance and investments that are made for the divorcing couples. Since divorce typically is a very private issue, we are planning to market using a referral system.
Divorcing couples can locate my clients’ services through religious organizations, community and government organizations, business organizations and associations, real estate associations, hospital and medical organizations and associations, arts and humanities organizations, CPAs and enrolled accountants, family marriage counselors and psychologists, and estate planning specialists. Typically, these are the groups that divorcing couples go to for advice. We hope to be ready for them.
Do you know who your ideal clients are and where to find them? What can you do to target your clients and prospects precisely?
Copyright © 2005 Sanford Jay Barris Sanford Jay Barris-President Business Marketing Services, Inc. Author: 97 Marketing Secrets to Make More Money: Your Secret Guide to Growing Your Business Right 10 W. Square Lake Road. Suite 214 Bloomfield Hills, MI 48302 Office: 248-335-8080 Fax: 248-335-8446 e-mail: info@97MarketingSecrets.com http://www.97MarketingSecrets.com
About the Author
As a graphic designer since 1978, creating various direct response marketing efforts for many Business Owners.
Clients typically invite me in to help them market their businesses.
Because of those many requests, I became a student of marketing, studying, listening to tapes, attending many seminars, talking to experts and absorbing anything they would teach me. I didn’t want to let any of my clients down, and ended up helping them grow their businesses.
As I met with clients, suppliers and experts, I always wrote out ideas on 3x5 index cards. Business ideas, marketing ideas, anything that came to mind that could help a client market better.
Because there are about 40 million different ways to market your business and generate more sales, do you know where to put your marketing dollars?
Small Business Owners: you may find a few answers in this guide: 97 Marketing Secrets to Make More Money: Your Secret Guide to Growing Your Business Right.
The guide was written for small business owners, CEOs, and marketing executives who want to improve their marketing skills.
‘97 Marketing Secrets’ exposes the truth about improving results from newspaper ads, magazine advertising, e-mail campaigns, yellow pages ads, sales letters and direct mail.
For more information contact Sanford Barris at 248-335-8080 or info@97MarketingSecrets.com
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