A simple way to create 7 effective autoresponder messages

Email is the Net's most powerful marketing tool. And autoresponders are the best idea yet for marketing with email. There is an old saying that the first ad rarely sells. You have to put your product, service, or idea in front of a prospect several times before she buys. Autoresponders are designed specifically to get your message back to the same prospect over and over. That's why most autoresponder packages come in groups of 7 messages--from the 7 message marketing rule that has been the rule in advertising since our grandparents were in diapers. But what do you say in your 7 messages? We've written autoresponder series for hundreds of customers. Here is one method that always works. This method is called REMIND 'EM. People don't read your sales letter as carefully as you think. They tend to skim. They read the first message, but miss the second and third message. The prospect may not tune in again until message five. It's so easy for people to completely miss your main points intended to lead to a sale. It's important to *repeat* your main message over and over. Say it once, twice, three times in your first message. Say your main message in a different way in the second message. Re-cap your main point again in the third message. That way, people who aren't paying attention still get your important ideas. Here's an example of how the "remind 'em" formula works for a 7 letter series promoting personal security products. Message (1) The world is a dangerous place. You need new innovative security products to insure your protection. Message (2) More details on how and why the world is a dangerous place. List places or situations that are especially threatening. Message (3) Recap how the world is a dangerous place. Give more details on the key new security products that have come out. Now start the middle section of messages. Note how they become more instructional telling people how to use the products. Message (4) Protect yourself from the dangerous world with Product A. Here's how to use Product A. Here's why you would use it. Here's where to use it. Message (5) Protect yourself with Product B. Here's how to use it. Here's what happy customers say about it. Tell a hair raising story of how Product B saved a customer's life. Now comes the wrap-up and reminder, especially important for people who never got around to reading your earlier messages. Message (6) Go back to your main sales letter used in numbers 1 and 2. Start all over reviewing your main points and highlighting your most popular products. Message (7) This is the final follow-up email. I usually have it come two weeks to one month after message 6. It's designed to scoop up all the people who weren't ready to buy in the beginning, but may be ready to buy now. It can start with "For the past few weeks I've been sending you important information about how to protect yourself in threatening situations. I know you are busy and may not have had time to consider how these products could improve your life and confidence." At that point, you again review your main points. Repetition is the key to advertising success. Find creative ways to keep the main message going week after week and you will have as many customers as you can handle. Busy prospects simply need time for your message to sink in. As we used to say when I worked in media, it's just when you and your staff are sick to death of a commercial that the audience is just beginning to notice it.

Positive thinking and effective marketing go hand in hand

Copyright 2006 Joel Sussman Successful sales and marketing requires persistence, continuous improvement, and the expectation of a positive outcome. If one doesn’t approach every aspect of marketing with enthusiasm, creativity, and a positive mental attitude, then it’s like embarking on schooner race with no wind in your sails. You’ll have no momentum or direction, and the competition is guaranteed to overtake you. Attitude has an insidious way of infiltrating everything we do; and it can lift us up to great heights or pull us down to the depths of failure. It can energize us to do and say all the right things at the right time, or it can undermine our motivation and cause us to sabotage our own best laid plans. The bottom line is this: either we own our attitude or our attitude owns us. Every now and then, it’s necessary to make a conscious decision to take charge of our thoughts, attitudes, and habits. An unfocused effort, whether it involves marketing or any other aspect of business, is sure to produce inferior results. Allowing negative thoughts to infect your mind creates a cascading effect of self-defeating behavior. In direct sales, one needs to have a winning attitude and a magnetic personality to influence and persuade prospects to become customers. That’s only the tip of the iceberg, though, because a successful salesperson also needs to have the finesse and people skills to win back lost customers, negotiate the best deal, ask for and get sales referrals, inspire teamwork, and have the energy and optimism to overcome setbacks and keep moving forward in the face of temporary failure. Without a positive mental attitude, none of that is going to happen. Cultivating a positive attitude also feeds the creativity and optimism necessary for nearly every other aspect of marketing ranging from sending out press releases and sales letters to placing ads or launching a web site. If you don’t believe it’s going to work, either you’re not going to try at all—or your efforts will be weakened and half-hearted. In both cases, you’re doomed to failure before you even get out of the starting gate. On the other hand, if you make up your mind to be an ‘eternal optimist’, you’ll be willing to take calculated risks and put your best foot forward. Getting there may involve an integrated program of reading motivational books, listening to self-improvement CDs, making a concerted effort to identify and avoid (or filter out) a lot of the negativity in your environment, and establishing daily habits that will tend to attract beneficial people and circumstances into your life. Being an entrepreneur and running your own business is an intrinsically risky endeavor. If an expensive marketing campaign falls flat or a major client signs on with the competition, you might find yourself scrambling to make up for the loss. A positive state of mind not only helps you be creative, resourceful, and energized, but it also enhances your ability to anticipate, adapt, and regroup. While many aspects of marketing are considered a gamble by anyone’s estimation, the best way to hedge your bets is by adopting a focused, optimistic, and positive mental attitude

It marketing good elevator speeches

IT marketing requires you to give “elevator speeches,” or short little descriptions of your business. In this article, you'll learn how to get the maximum effectiveness from your elevator speech. If you go to a chamber of commerce luncheon, you might find yourself (and everyone else) having to give their 30 second commercial. If there happen to be two or three other computer service companies there at that same event, you want to make sure that your elevator speech resonates to make this aspect of IT marketing effective. IT Marketing: Focus on Benefits, Not Features The key thing with an elevator pitch is that you want to focus on the benefits that you can provide for a particular business. For example, here's mine, “Hi, this is Joshua Feinberg from Computer Consulting 101. We help small business computer consultants sell more services, build their business and run more profitable companies.” If you pitching to a small business you might say, “My Company helps small businesses in the local area use technology more effectively.” Or, “My Company helps small businesses in the area solve computer problems” or “My Company helps small businesses use technology to grow their businesses” or “use technology to drive down costs” or “use technology to squeeze more productivity.” IT Marketing: Make Sure Your Elevator Speech is Sincere It's important to come across as sincere. It's important to come across as someone that can help them and has a genuine interest in hearing more about them. The general rule of thumb with networking is to try to let the person that you're talking to do most of the talking. Use active listening and find the opportunity for you to help them out. Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Biz Tech Talk. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

Small business marketing magic

: Once upon a time, in 1969, there was a young woman who had a dream of starting her own company. She had ideas, talent and work ethic to spare but what she didn't have was cash. After careful research she found that marketing would cost more than all the other aspects of her business combined. Out came the credit cards, family loans and savings. After a few months the woman realized that she had mortgaged her future to the hilt and she still couldn't make enough money to buy her way out of debt. Sadly, she closed up shop and went back to a job she hated at an uncaring corporation. Fast-forward thirty years and meet a young man working at an insurance company who dreamed of starting his own small business as a financial planner. He had the education and experience but what he didn't have was cash. The year is 1999 and after a few weeks of research the young man realized that marketing and promotion were vital to the success of his business. However, the young man knew about a magical method of promotion that wasn't available to the young woman in 1969. What was the magical method he used to start his business part-time and build it into a full-time thriving practice after six months? The answer, of course, is the internet! It's true that the internet seems like a capricious magician that selectively waves a magic wand over some small businesses. However, the reasons for this became glaringly clear to the young man after he completed his research. He discovered that success is garnered by avoiding scams such as "business opportunities" that seem too good to be true. In addition to hard work and patience he stayed away from spam, Free For All Links (FFAs), pyramid schemes, network marketing, sweepstakes and investment fraud. He used scambusters. org to avoid anything that remotely resembled a scam. The young man developed a marketing plan focusing on the internet and after six months he found the following free or nearly free strategies worked best: Press Releases - Particularly helpful if the release is tied to an upcoming holiday or a recent event. Creating Content - Offering articles and case studies is by far the most reliable way to find clients and brand yourself as an expert in your field. Book Reviews - Some on-line books stores like Amazon allow you to post reviews of books you've read. These reviews will be tied to an "About Me" page that can include information about you and your business and your URL. Forums - Joining forums that cover your area of expertise is a good move. Help people by answering questions about your topic and include your URL in your signature. Testimonials - Wise marketers ask every existing client for testimonials to be used on their website and/or printed marketing material. Newsletters - Keeping in touch with customers and prospects with an on-line e-zine is a good way to build a steady stream of loyal clients. Teleseminars - A small investment in a bridge line allows a group of people to sign up for a free or fee based seminar on your area of expertise. Referrals - Proactively asking clients for referrals works better if they are offered a discount on products or services in return. Solo E-zine Ads - Solo ads are an advertisement or article sent by itself to a list of newsletter readers. Many solo ads are competitively priced and offer a generous amount of room for your message. The young man learned a lesson that we can all appreciate. There is no "get rich quick schemes" that work on or off-line. The only way to prosper hasn't changed over time... build client relationships with hard work and excellent customer service. Cultivate patience and find your own internet magic by following in the footsteps of the young man. (c) 2005, Davis Virtual Assistance. All rights in all media reserved.

The over sales pitched world

Welcome to an over "sales pitched" world. A world in which competition is fierce. Businesses competing with one another to try and get your money out of your pocket. Everyday we are being bombarded with ads on the radio, tv, billboards, email, mail, and telephone. It seems that everyday life has become one large sales pitch. From the time we wake up to the time we go to bed we have been sales pitched just to wake up and do it all over again. It amazes me to think the amount of dollars these large companies are spending on advertising just to get your attention to buy. My question is, are people tuning this form of advertising out because of the shear volume we as consumers face on a daily basis? Don't get me wrong. For entertainment sake, some of these commecials are great and some are lousy. But I do know this. I never bought a product because of a commercial on tv or radio.. As a matter of fact, it seems radio has become the opposite. We listen to the radio to hear the commercials and once in awhile, they might play a song. As soon as an ad is played on the radio, I turn the dial (or hit the seek button) or I hit off. I bought because someone I know or had a conversation with uses a product or service and recommends it. I don't care what kind of detergent you have, I will buy what cleans my clothes. I do not base my detergent buying on a radio or tv ad. I think what would be interesting is to find out a product or service that is quite successful, meaning an unknown brand, that has virtually no advertising budget attached to it. Just word of mouth without all the hype. There are quite a few of them out there. Look, marketing is not about spending gazillions of dollars with flashy entertaining ads and commercials, It's about communicating the right message to a targeted audience. People are looking for your product, service, and or opportunity. If you think you can not build a business from your home without spending lots of money on advertising, think again. Start focusing your thoughts on a marketing strategy based on communicating the right message to the right people that helps people, and watch your results improve. Remember, in the world of marketing, it's not about matching your competitors dollar for dollar in the scope of sameness. Instead, it's about rising above what everyone else is doing. (c) Copyright 2006

Get a competitive marketing edge with pr techniques

Copyright 2006 Joel Sussman One of the least understood, most underutilized marketing techniques in the business world is public relations. That fact represents an opportunity for small business owners and managers who are willing to devote a little time to cultivating relationships with reporters and editors in their community. Advertising is the obvious approach to self-promotion, so a lot of your competition is doing it. Generating free or inexpensive publicity through press releases and media relations is not as commonplace, so it offers a much more uncluttered arena for gaining visibility and name recognition. The 'cost of admission' consists of a newsworthy story and a little insight into how the process works. Potential Pitfalls and Opportunities The bad news is that editors, radio news directors, and other media gatekeepers receive dozens of press releases every day, and that's just in the small towns! Releases get tossed in the circular file for three primary reasons: 1) They look unprofessional, 2) They're an ad masquerading as a news story, or 3) They have little or no news value. Three other fatal flaws in a news release are: a failure to get to the point right away, an abysmal absence of formatting, and glaring typographical mistakes and grammatical neglect. Although it may sound like there are 101 ways you can go wrong (so why even try?), it's actually more a matter of common sense, persistence, and following a few basic guidelines. It might take a little experimentation to discover whether you get better results working directly with specific reporters, instead of editors (and using email vs snail mail), but as you fine tune your approach and make yourself known to local media people, your success rate should rise significantly. You may ultimately find that public relations is the missing link in an otherwise lackluster media campaign. Cardinal Rules of Press Release Writing As in any type of marketing, presentation and image can make a big difference in the quality of the results produced. Here are a dozen guidelines for putting your best foot forward with the media. 1) In the headline and the body of the release, emphasize the news value of your story. If it fails to catch an editor's attention or sounds remotely like an ad, the odds of it being published or broadcast are slim. 2) It will have more of an impact if the first paragraph contains the most important information, with the rest of the material arranged in order of descending importance. 3) One simple, but useful guideline for writing a press release is the old journalism standard of focusing on the five "W's", namely: Who? What? When? Where? Why? and sometimes, How? 4) Write it from the perspective of an objective observer, not from the point of view of a business owner or manager 5) Use short sentences and double spacing between paragraphs. 6) The last paragraph should be reserved for a brief bio or a few boilerplate sentences about your company. Journalists know to look there for that information. 7) One page is the ideal length for a press release. The media will call or email you if they have questions or want to interview you. 8) Formatting elements: After the headline at the top, the following information is generally inserted: the words "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE", one or two contact names and phone numbers, and, right before the first sentence of the release, the location and date of the news story. 9) Maintain an up-to-date mailing list of reporters and editors, and get to know them, whenever possible. Jot down a few notes about each one. 10) Suggest article ideas, occasionally, and let it be known that you're available for interviews. IDEA: One way to establish a reputation as a valuable resource for the media is by preparing for them a printed list of experts, spokespeople, and authorities on topics related to your profession or industry. 11) Emailing tip: Reporters and editors intensely dislike email attachments, as a rule. Get around that by including the press release in the body of the email. 12) Perhaps the most important consideration when working with the media is that they're always under an impending deadline, especially at daily newspapers and broadcast news departments. Among the worst violations of media etiquette is not returning phone calls promptly and requesting the chance to review articles prior to publication. Opportunities to Send Press Releases Countless opportunities to send out press releases and receive valuable, free publicity get missed every day. There are literally dozens of newsworthy opportunities for getting positive media exposure, including mergers, acquisitions, partnerships, office expansions, new employees, awards, workshops, speaking engagements, fund-raising campaigns, lobbying activities, the launch of a new web site, announcing survey results, sponsorships, or taking a public position on an industry-related issue. Business milestones are often a good reason to issue a press release, such as the grand opening of a new office or announcing a business's 25th anniversary. The bottom line is that being written about (or broadcast) in the media conveys more credibility than messages communicated through paid advertising; and it can be a vital element of any integrated marketing campaign. Although 'Familiarity breeds contempt', according to Aesop, the ancient Greek fabulist, one area in which that usually doesn't hold true is modern public relations and marketing. With few exceptions, the more ways people hear about you, the better.

It marketing sell your expertise

How do you differentiate yourself from others in your local marketplace? One of the best ways is by focusing on your unique expertise in your IT marketing. Your clients are really buying you, not a box or a server or a software license. In this article, you'll learn how to differentiate yourself. Don't Become a Commodity Commodities are cheap and everyone is out price shopping. To avoid this kind of mentality, you must sell “You Incorporated.” Focus on selling your expertise and the special problem-solving value that you bring to the table. Don't Be Hidden in Your IT Marketing Materials Make sure your website lists you as the owner. Don't try to hide the size of your company and try to make it look big by keeping it anonymous. The best thing you can do in IT marketing is focus on selling your background (and the background of any of your business partners and staff). You should also tell people your unique beliefs and philosophies about how you can help small businesses. Be Unique One of the biggest questions I get is “What have you found to be the best, most cost-effective way to get great leads, both in your own business and with some of the consultants that you work with across the country and around the globe?” The biggest problem that I see is that everyone is going after the same leads with the same worn-out pitch from five years ago. The problem with this is nothing is unique in the message. Nothing is unique in the pitch. Do Your IT Marketing Materials Look Like Everyone Else's? If you think you're immune to it, here's the simple test. Get out your business card. Take a look at your home page. Gather up a couple of business cards and home pages from competitors in your local area and see what you are saying that's different. My guess is that everyone is saying, “We sell PC hardware and software, LANs and service.” This is true… this is what you do. But how do you expect new clients to pick you out over the pack? Ask yourself; do you want to compete against a dozen potential competitors or a few hundred potential competitors? Do you want to be banging your head against the wall every day trying to compete against everyone that's saying the exact same thing? Or do you want to compete against just a handful of savvy VARs in your area? Copyright Notice: Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Business Computer Consulting. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}