Your Biggest Marketing Challenge?

Erin,

Do you market yourself at your local Chamber of commerce? There are tons of new business owners there and most have terrible logos. I see you do a complete package including a business card, and logo for their web sites, etc.

I'd also find a way to contact new chamber members and introduce yourself and offer a "Complimentary Brand Assessment." Make this a process that qualifies prospective clients. Have a page about it on your web site and a form to fill out. What you want to do is take people through a process where they get to know you and ultimately have an in-depth conversation that turns a percentage of them into clients.

So... don't sell your logo service, sell the Brand Assessment and position is as a real value. One way to do this is to do introductory workshops on branding and then offer those in attendance a Brand Assessment. Yes, you need to refine it so that you are not wasting time with tire kickers, but this kind of process really works.

Kaya,

I just did an interview on this topic where we cover a ton of ideas for building a list. It will be in my Marketing Club in early June.

One good way to build a list is with online articles posted on eZineArticles.com. Another is doing surveys and another is starting a group (like this one) on Facebook or Biznik.

Bill, finding these people is easier than getting them to refer business to you. I'd create a very focused newsletter or eZine that went to this group and only talk about bottom line results your clients are getting from this service. This may be a long-term strategy but if you build your business on success stories, you'll get more referrals. I'd also offer these people special programs/workshops/teleclasses to show the kind of value you offer. Keep your name, message and value in front of them.

Vincent, I would never, ever, never buy services from a financial services person calling me cold. Never. I get these kind of calls all the time. I turn them down 100% of the time no matter what they say.

Instead, I'd expand my network into groups with people who could be potential clients and I'd have a marketing message that got people's attention.

I found a money manager on Biznik. She posted in a forum and mentioned that during the downturn non of her clients had lost any money in their portfolios. I contacted her immediately!

You're in a tough business now!

Kaya, I'm not an expert on Surveys but it's pretty easy to do one on Survey Monkey. The person I interviewed suggested putting out a press release on PR Wire on a relevant topic and then directing people to the survey. But you must capture peoples' name and email before they do the survey.

Daniel, whenever you have an interesting and different business, you become press worthy. I'm not an expert in this area but I'd look into someone helping you to develop interesting press releases for your service. Your website looks very professional but frankly you could have ten times the content to explain your services.

I think your most important link is "Learn About Funeral Services" but that link is buried (no pun intended) at the bottom of the page and mostly talks about Jewish funerals. The whole aspect of "brining personalized services to your own front door" is not emphasized enough.

Gary, you have a great website and look very professional. But you are in a commodity-type business where your main differentiators are price and service. But people are attracted to a company because of relationships and the word-of-mouth they generate.

I'd try to stand out more by emphasizing those relationships. One way would be a series of simple videos with clients telling what it's like working with you. You'd want them to be fun and upbeat and authentic.

When someone came to your website they'd see something different and be drawn into the stories and personalities of your customers. The impression needs to be: "These people are just like me and they seem to love this company, I should check them out."

As good as your web site is, it doesn't have that impact. I think this would really differentiate you from your competitors.

Remember, you have two tasks when marketing on the Internet, one is to get people to your site. You're accomplishing that with your AdWords campaign at quite a high cost.

The other is the conversion factor. That is, how many who visit your site will respond? I'd put a lot of time and effort into that and work at doubling or tripling your response with approaches such as the videos.

David Ogilvy, the adman said, "You can't bore people into doing business with you." So do things that really get people's attention and pull them into your world.

Hope these comments help!

Prafulla, you're a long time subscriber and you've used some of my materials. You should be in my Marketing Club. Use it to create a detailed marketing action plan. One of my top recommendations for consultants is to do speaking engagements, intro workshops, etc. You can't wait for business to come to you.

Jennifer, same advice. Get out there and do speaking. This is how I built my business in the mid 90's. It was the key. It resulted in a lot of new clients and real momentum in my business that hasn't stopped.

Gary don't write off the video idea so quickly. The most powerful marketing tools anyone has are testimonials and case studies. But yours don't say a lot. Given that you're in a commodity business, videos would convey the personality of your customers and your brand. It would cost less than you think.

Don't think videos work? Check out Blend Tec. They do no advertising, but their videos have been seen millions of times and it they have helped grow the business explosively.

Your most important task as an entrepreneur: innovation. You need to get out of your comfort zone and do what makes you uncomfortable. That's where the breakthroughs are.

Vincent, cold calls can work but it's very hard. People don't like speaking to strangers and when it comes to investing money in this climate people are even more wary.

Continue to cold call if you like but I'd spend a lot of time networking, giving seminars, improving your web site (sorry to be blunt but what you have would convince me NEVER to do business with you.) You need a new design and a lot more content. I don't know if you have control over this, if not, too bad, but this web site is hurting you more than helping you. That is, you'd probably get more business without this web site. Check out my Web Site ToolKit for a complete tutorial on building a client attracting web site.

The money manager's name is Grace Antares.

Cheers, Robert

Lisa, I think you are going in the right direction, but the devil is in the details.

I just did an Expert Interview for my Marketing Club that goes into great detail on how to set up "Pay What You Can" services. It's mostly for workshops but can be applied to some degree to other services. It's quite brilliant.

You can't just give away services, you need to offer them in a certain way. If you hope that they'll pay you later without an explicit agreement it usually doesn't turn out well.

It's impossible to give you a lot of details here (It was a 48 page transcript), so I urge you to check out the Marketing Club

The first month's membership is now free and you can get access to a ton of hands-on stuff that can help your business.

Cheers, Robert

Edward, Read my article on Biznik about Marketing Ball. It's all about creating powerful messages that get you on "first base."

This is so friggin' simple but it's like a code that most people don't crack. I talk about it in my More Clients eZine today as well in the context of the Marketing Conversation.

There's a definite formula for this. Once you get it, your marketing will never be the same.

Check out the Marketing Club as well!

Cheers, Robert

Vincent, You said: "Hopefully people, professionals and business wouldn't be so quick to judge the valuable services we can bring to their business here on biznik just by viewing the web site alone."

I really hate to tell you, but yes they will. People are judgmental. That's just the way it is. And if what you present doesn't communicate, they will give up and go elsewhere fast. Even if they like you!

I know it's not fair. But it didn't come easy to me either. I redesigned my website 5 full times from scratch in 12 years. I'm not brilliant but I'm persistent! (And it's still hardly perfect, but it brings me a ton of business).

I hope your re-designers know what they're doing! Let me see it when they're done.

Cheers, Robert