Great Link : A Great Blog Post On Getting a Client To Say Yes

Dave Lorenzo over at Rainmaker Lawyer has a great post about how to get a client to say ‘yes’. His post is aimed at lawyers but I think it’s applicable to most businesses.

The article :

http://www.rainmakerlawyer.com/site/permalink/attorney_marketing_how_to_get_clients_to_say_yes/

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October 18, 2010 | Sam Howley | No Comments »

Should you be recording where your customers heard about your business ?


“One of the most common remarks I hear from Business is that ‘I tried advertising and it didn’t work’. My response to this is always the same – how do you know it didn’t work ?
…
The only way to really determine where your customers have heard about you is to ask them. people are happy to answer this question, in fact most are
quite impressed that you care enough to ask.”

Andrew Griffiths,  101 Ways to Market Your Business


“The easy place to start is to simply ask customers where they heard about you. This lets you track which channel of advertising reached them. Over time, this information will tell you the ROI on your advertising, so you can focus your spending.”

Ed Erickson – Thrive Strategy,

Small Business Success – Being in the right place at the right time


“Find out where the sales are coming from. If you’re a mom and pop retail shop, ask your customers where they heard about you. Keep a tally of what percentage are coming in through social media.”

Rob Laughter,

3 Ways Small Businesses can Measure Social Media ROI and PROVE results


“The difference between a good and a great business is that the great businesses know where their customers are coming from.”

Judi Jamieson, Advertising Saleswoman


“The simplest way to log the effectiveness of an advert is to just ask customers where they heard about you.”

BizHelp24,
Marketing Help 24 – Measuring Advertising Results


“Don’t forget to ask your customers where they heard about you. But if you’re going to measure advertising effectivness, do it carefully and systematically.”

ExplainThatStuff DIY Advertising,
www.explainthatstuff.com – Measure the effectiveness of your advertising


“An even easier way to gauge the effectiveness of your promotion is simply to ask your clients where they heard about you. It’s a very natural question to pose during the course of an enquiry or sale and most clients will be more than willing to tell you.”

www.business.qld.gov.au,  Smart Skills – The State of Queensland (Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation )


“There is little point in spending money on marketing unless you are able to tell if it has worked. Ask customers where they heard about you, keep records and results and you will know whether it is worth repeating or not. Make your advertising work for you, by using coupons or promotional codes. Awareness advertising is the remit of the ?big boys?. Small businesses need to see a return.”

thisisspain.info,  Mallorca Marketing

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August 26, 2010 | Sam Howley | No Comments »

I just stumbled upon an interesting marketing exercise

I can read advice and agree with it but later when I actually live through applying (or not applying) the advice I find my self thinking “Oh wow! Now I get it, I thought I understood before but living it makes me understand it in a deep more precise way”.

USP is your unique selling proposition, or unique selling point, the thing that makes you different, it makes you stand apart from your competition.

Pretty simple idea huh ? Well I recently started looking at a whole bunch of business coach websites and it’s given me a whole new appreciation for the power of USP.

Eventually most of the sites start to seem the same, the bios of the coaches seem the same, the promises of profit and money back guarantees start to sound the same.  Even the layouts of the sites start to seem samey.  Business coaches are focused on collecting email addresses for example. So newsletters and free downloadable e-books are the order of the day.

By the time I’d hit the tenth website I could see the power of a strong USP.  A potential customer looking through these sites would be hard pressed to find something that really stood out for most of them.

Idea : Go and spend 20 seconds on 10 motel websites or 10 dentist websites or 10 bank websites and for each one come up with a single sentence to describe the service in the most distinct and unique way possible.  You know what, you can’t do it, because very few actually articulate their USP.

I think when you come across a business with a well defined USP it’s not hard to spot, having a USP isn’t the same as having a niche I know, but these two business coaches certainly stood out from the crowd :

www.thegolfbusinesscoach.com

www.braqueen.com.au

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August 22, 2010 | Sam Howley | No Comments »