B 2 B Direct Mail Marketing Followup

Once you’ve done a few mailings, go visit the prospects on your list. Before you go, though, think through what you want to say to them. A short (three-minute) description of what you do and how you can help the prospect’s company make money will get you started. Once you’ve delivered it, ask them what you need to do to get their business, then shut up and listen. Nine times out of ten, they’ll tell you what you need to know as long as you use a professional approach and demonstrate a willingness to pay attention. Don’t be offended if you get a brush-off or two and don’t give up if they say they already have a preferred source for what you’re trying to sell. If that happens, thank them for their time and move on. Keep them on your mailing list, though, and visit them again next month—things change!

You should also have a leave-behind of some sort for every sales call. This can be a version of your latest direct mail piece, a fancier brochure, or even a coffee mug with your logo. And don’t forget to give them your business card. In fact, one of the best tactics you can adopt is to always hand out two cards at a time and ask the recipient to pass one along to anyone else they know who might be interested in your services.

Once you’ve established a relationship, build on it. There are all kinds of creative things you can do to keep your company at the top of the prospect’s list of preferred subs and vendors. Offer to sponsor a sales contest for the prospect for example, awarding a prize to the dealer’s salesperson who sells the most pieces in your line during a given period of time. Watch for the prospect’s own sales event, then have a pile of pizzas or a few boxes of donuts delivered with your compliments on their busiest day.  If the prospect belongs to a civic group or supports a local charity, become involved with it yourself. The goal is to keep your name in front of the prospect all the time.

Your own vendors may help you with business-to-business marketing, too. Many manufacturers and distributors have co-operative advertising programs that pay part of the cost of your printing and mailing if you feature their products. Even if they don’t have a formal program, it doesn’t hurt to ask the next time you place an order. Others may have regional sales reps who would be available to go with you to make face-to-face calls. You should also ask if your suppliers do any lead generating of their own—trade shows, magazine advertising, etc.—that they can share with you.

Even with help from your vendors, marketing isn’t free, of course. A hundred first-class letters will cost you at least $100 for postage, envelopes, and computer printer ink. Imprinted coffee mugs aren’t cheap and even a supply of business cards will set you back a few bucks.

The biggest expense, though, is your time. Someone has to compile the prospect list, write the sales letters, and make the sales calls. In most small businesses, that someone is you. To control that particular expense (and to make sure the marketing gets done), dedicate a set number of hours every week to it, budgeting your time the same way you do your money.

Marketing is an investment from which you should expect a return. Fortunately, results from business-to-business marketing are usually easy to track. There is a finite prospect list, you know exactly how you’re marketing to each one, and you can easily identify the orders that you get from them. Make the investment in business-to-business marketing for a few months, then review the response. You might be surprised how much your company’s business has grown.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

How To Succeed At B 2 B Direct Marketing

Advertising to other companies doesn’t mean running TV spots in the Super Bowl. It’s much more targeted than that, which means it’s much more economical. Direct mail is probably the single most effective medium to use; it’s intrusive and there’s very little waste circulation. There are three keys to successful direct mail: a good prospect list, a compelling message, and repetition. You can make up a short prospect list yourself if you spend a little time with the Yellow Pages. Just look up the dealers and other prospects in your market area, call them to get the names of the general managers, service writers, sales managers and buyers, and you’ll have a solid prospect list to work with. Keep it handy, by the way, because you’ll use it later when you start making sales calls.

The direct mail piece itself doesn’t have to be a four-color glossy catalogue. In fact, a one-page personal letter introducing you and describing how you can make money for the other company (in one form or another, that should always be your pitch) will be a good place to start. Every three or four weeks, send another one saying the same thing in different ways. You can announce new equipment or product lines you’ve added, quote a recently satisfied customer, or brag about any awards you’ve received. Address it to each individual on your list, keep it to one page, include a picture or two, and make sure you send something at least once a month.

A web site is a useful business-to-business marketing tool, too. If it has plenty of pictures of your work or products, testimonials from satisfied customers, and some information about your background and your company’s capabilities, it will give the prospect even more reasons to send business your way. Also make sure there is a working email link, phone and fax numbers, and keep it all up to date. You don’t need to hire a high-priced web designer, by the way; most hosting services offer perfectly good bare-bones templates. The site itself can cost less than $10 a month.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Social Media Marketing Tips From The Pros

“You have to create a plan. I see many professionals and smaller businesses who haven’t looked at their objectives. Who is their target audience? What key messages are they trying to get out?”
--Stacy Cohen, Co-communications

“A great way to gain followers on Twitter is to Retweet what someone else has to say or to jump into their conversation and add your own perspective. Also ask people to retweet your links by adding the words ‘Pls RT’”
--Stacy Solomon, Internet Marketing Consultant

“If you are spending five hundred to a thousand dollars each month on marketing and take even one or two months of this and invest in setting up your social media, you can see a significant long-term gain for your business.”
--Gerald Stern, WOW Production Services

“One hundred high-quality followers easily equals one thousand so-so followers, because in the social media world you want people to constantly pass on the things you write, as well as send you material to post. Business people must avoid an overt ‘sales’ method—you’ll just turn people off and you’ll lose your following.”
--Chris Cornell, Westchester Social Media

“You should never expect social media to be completely cost-free. Someone must spend time staying on top of all those tweets, messages, Facebook updates and blog posts. Likewise, quick (if not instant) replies are necessary to maintain a reputation for responsiveness.”
--Kristen Ruby, Ruby Media Group

Whether they pay-it-forward or pay-as-they-go, more and more business owners and managers are turning to social media networks for very good reasons. “In the current economic downturn business owners must go above and beyond to promote themselves,” says Rye NY Chamber of Commerce Secretary Sally Wright. The organization received dozens of requests for a repeat of its recent social media seminar. She adds, “Social media is one great way to accomplish that.”

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Make Money With Facebook?

Can you make money with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media? Five experts answer that pressing question and several more at the Social Media Panel Discussion and Business Breakfast presented by 914Inc Magazine. I'll be moderating the panel and asking the social media pros the things business owners need to know in order to use these tools effectively--and profitably.

This FREE event is Tuesday, September 27, 7:30 to 9 AM at Antun's of Westchester, 35 Valley Avenue, Elmsford, NY. Tickets are limited, so RSVP by September 20.

Here's the panel that will answer your questions about making social media work for your business:

Tara Carraro
Senior Director, Corporate Communications, Heineken USA
In this capacity, she is responsible for developing internal and external communications strategies and programs, reputation management, crisis preparedness, consumer affairs and executive communication. Tara is also responsible for providing strategic counsel and guidance to Heineken USA's brand teams on the use of social media consistent with the Company's guidelines and marketing codes, and she successfully managed the Company's first crisis involving social media. In addition, Ms. Carraro oversees the use of social media in responding to consumer inquiries. Prior to joining Heineken USA, she served as Director, External Communications for Altria Corporate Services, Inc. In this role, she was responsible for developing external communications strategies and plans, along with the execution of both the paid and earned components. Ms. Carraro was also responsible for the development and day-to-day management of programs and strategies to enhance the reputation of Altria Group, Inc.

Chris Cornell
“The Twitter Professor” and Owner of BaseballArt.com
Chris S. Cornell was named “Social Media Guru for 2010″ by Westchester Magazine. Here is what they had to say: Can’t tell your Twitter from your Tumblr? Through his website, twitterprofessor.com, Chris S. Cornell helps people and businesses not only make sense of the crazy social media jungle—but he teaches them how to have fun there, too, by trying to get us all online together as a community. “My original goal with social media was to use it for the benefit of my business, BaseballArt.com,” he says. “Along the way, I saw how useful social media could be for individuals, organizations, and businesses. There has been a surge in the use of social media in the Westchester area. I believe we’ve hit the tipping point.” And Cornell is leading the way!

Michael Perry
Chief Product Officer (and “Social Media Guru”) of House Party, Irvington
As Chief Product Officer, Perry is responsible for House Party’s product vision, design and development, as well as product marketing and management. He has extensive experience in marketing and product development, as well as technical training in analytics, with a specialty in econometrics. He combines this experience and training with a strong research background in human behavior and human cognitive development. This unique talent set is the basis from which he has developed truly innovative marketing strategies and programs for some of the world’s largest brands.

Prior to joining House Party, Perry spent over 20 years on the client side, leading strategy, product, marketing and data analytics teams. Most recently, he served as Senior Vice President of Marketing, Brand Strategy and Emerging Technology at Story Worldwide, a global content marketing agency. He successfully implemented new branding and business initiatives, which resulted in building new revenue and retaining current receivables of $17 million for the agency. He has also established himself as a leader in the social media marketing space, creating social media and storytelling approaches, tools and methodologies at Story, and as a major contributor to the Online Marketing Blog Network. Prior to his experience at Story, Perry held strategic marketing positions at Wyndham Worldwide/Group RCI, JPMorgan Chase & Company, Bertelsmann AG (BMG), Citibank and Time Warner.

Kris Ruby
President of Ruby Media Group, LLC

A Social Media Marketing & Public Relations agency, RMG “socializes” businesses for Web 2.0 and helps companies adapt traditional marketing into social media platforms. RMG specializes in social media optimization, personal & corporate branding in real time and optimized PR. By utilizing various social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIN, RMG creates online visibility for her clients and increases overall branding awareness by enhancing their brand image in Web 2.0 communities.

Kristen founded RMG with the goal of opening the vast potential of Social Media on the web to companies wishing to build relationships, grow and profit from Web 2.0. Kristen is at the epicenter of the social media marketing world and frequently speaks to businesses and associations on new media and viral marketing. She also presents social media workshops for CEO groups to empower business owners to utilize social tools for their networks. Kristen was honored by Columbia University’s Business School to lead a social media workshop for its alumni organization and was chosen to speak on personal brand authenticity at Microsoft.

Kristen graduated from Boston University’s College of Communication with a major in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She is also the Director of the” Girls In Tech” social media mentorship program, created to encourage girls to enter the field of social media marketing. She has partnered up with some of Westchester’s most reputable PR and marketing agencies as their New Media Specialist on social media campaigns, including Giles Communications and DataKey Consulting. Kris has filmed segments on personal branding, social media overload, and how social media is impacting dating on ABC Good Morning CT and NBC. Kris is also a columnist for JMAG & Inside Chappaqua Magazine on social media/ branding and was chosen by the Business Council of Westchester as the youngest “40 Under 40″ Rising Stars for 2010.

Nancy Shenker
Founder/CEO, theONswitch

Since starting theONswitch in 2003, Nancy A. Shenker has helped a wide range of businesses launch, re-brand, and flourish. Prior to starting her venture, she worked in various business development and marketing positions and is experienced in all media and in small- and large-scale marketing. She started another business, a publishing venture called www.nunumedia.com in 2010.

Her expertise is in business start-ups and transformations and she has an extensive track record in growing businesses through creative new solutions. Although Nancy was raised in the “traditional” media era, she has embraced the web and social media and is fluent in all forms of online media and uses them to build brands and revenue. theONswitch has succeeded in using combinations of “old and new media” to deliver huge increases in lead volume and sales for a variety of businesses, including real estate, food, retail, and others. Her process is based on four key steps — Imagine, Focus, Buzz and Profit.

Among her corporate accomplishments is the launch of Citibank’s Connecticut branches. She also developed a proprietary database system to identify new retail customers, researched and launched numerous new products/services, played a lead role in MasterCard’s “Priceless” campaign roll-out and managed event marketing for the world’s largest producer of business trade shows, spanning 40 industries.

She holds an AB in English and Psychology from of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and a Graduate Diploma in Book Publishing from New York University. She also completed Kellogg’s Executive Communications program at Northwestern University.

Nancy is a Contributing Editor for the New York Enterprise Report and Canada Camps magazines. She has been published and quoted in The New York Times, Smart Money TV , aol, Business Week, Entrepreneur.com, the Associated Press syndicate, The Stamford Advocate, the Westchester Business Journal, AT&T’s and Lowe’s websites, and other publications. She also publishes three blogs – theONblog, Hippy to Wiki and Show Girl Talk and a series of marketing and business tips, which can be found at www.10volts.com. She serves on the Board of Yonkers Partners in Education.

RSVP via email to pr@westchestermagazine.com or call (914) 345-0601 ext 146. Hurry--tickets are limited!

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Advertising's Nasty Four-Letter Word

Back in the good old days when parents actually corrected their children’s behavior, your mother might wash your mouth out with soap if you used certain four-letter words. Today, you should do the same to whomever writes your advertising (even if that’s you) if your ads contain the most offensive four-letter word in advertising, “have.”

It’s scary how often we hear this terrible, nasty word. “We have name brand merchandise.” “We have friendly, knowledgeable personnel.” “We have the latest equipment.” “We have everything from soup to nuts.” You don’t need to look very far to see how prevalent the "have" approach is in retail (and other) advertising. Newspaper ads tell readers what the store has with pictures of items with prices next to them. TV spots show pictures of items with prices superimposed on them and an announcer telling the viewer what they are seeing. Radio commercials do the same without the pictures.

Why is it a bad practice to tell the customer what you have? Because that takes up expensive space and time that could be put to much better use giving the customer a reason to do business with you. Good ads don’t tell the customer what you have. Instead, they answer the key question, “What’s in it for me?” That’s an important distinction to make when every advertising dollar needs to produce maximum results. The lack of worthwhile information in advertising is one of the main reasons people tune it out and why so much advertising doesn’t produce results. When customers stop listening to your advertising, it’s money down the drain.

Learning how to demonstrate product benefits instead of features is one of the most important skills a salesperson can master. The same holds true for good advertising. A benefit is something that satisfies one or more of the customer’s needs. A feature is simply a component of the product. People don’t buy features and products; they buy benefits.

Keep in mind that prices in your ads are nothing more than features of the items you’re selling. And like other features, prices don’t mean much out of context. So the same principle holds true: Don’t just tell the customer how much it costs; tell them what benefit that price delivers. Instead of saying “All gloves are 50% off,” tell the customer to “Buy two for the price of one.” Or, even better, “Protect your hands two times for the price of once.”

There are two exceptions to the “have” rule. The first is when you want to announce something new or exclusive—and even then a benefit should be included. The second exception is in the print or online Yellow Pages. Customers usually use this medium to find specific items, so you do need to tell them you have what they’re looking for. These customers are generally knowledgeable about what they need and want—-they’re just looking for a source. That’s also why it’s a good idea to spread your listings among many headings—-you increase the chance of reaching someone looking for a specific type of product or service.

Communications expert Dorothy Leeds says that every customer listens to their own personal radio station, called WII-FM. That stands for “What’s In It For Me.” Good advertising is like a song that gets played often on that radio station. So stop using that four letter word “have” and start telling the customer what you’re going to do for them. Give them a reason to get in their SUV, drive to your shop, and open their wallet. Tell them how they will benefit from doing business with YOU.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Grab Attention with Unusual Advertising

The sounds of a baby crying or a telephone ringing are impossible to ignore. Can the same be said about your advertising? Getting your prospective customer’s attention is the crucial first function of every ad, whether it be in print, broadcast, or on the side of your delivery truck. People pay attention to the unusual and the unexpected. As advertising legend David Ogilvy once wrote, “When you advertise fire-extinguishers, open with the fire.” There’s nothing wrong with the blunt direct approach as long as it accomplishes the task at hand without undermining the rest of your ad’s message.

Each advertising medium has its own repertoire of techniques to help you capture the prospective customer’s attention. In print ads, headlines and illustrations help pull the reader in. The Newspaper Association of America, citing a study they commissioned by Roper Starch Worldwide, says that showing the product attracts readers 13% more than not showing the product. Multi-product visuals in ads are 25% more likely to attract readers and, in ads where three-quarters of the space is devoted to illustrations, recall rates improve by 50%. Using full color in an ad increases its recall by 20% over black and white.

Pictures aren’t everything, though. At one time, David Ogilvy estimated that five times more people read the headline than read the body copy in a print ad, so attention to the big, bold type at the top of the ad pays off, too. After all, it’s the job of the headline to make the reader want to continue looking at the rest of the ad. There are many standard headline-writing techniques you can use. Making it read like a news bulletin is one. Another is to offer “congratulations, you’ve won” and entice the reader to dig deeper to discover the prize. And don’t underestimate the power of the ever-popular word “free” to motivate someone to try to learn more. Just make sure when using come-ons like these that they are legitimate; a deceived reader makes a lousy customer.

Many of the same principles apply to getting attention in radio. Instead of pictures, though, you use sound effects, music, and high-impact copy. Regardless of the methods you use, it’s essential that your radio commercial sound different from the programming on the station on which it’s playing, since radio is often in the background of the listener’s consciousness to start with. If you’re advertising on a talk station, use music. If you’re running on a country music station, try spots that sound like news. Whatever you do, make sure it doesn’t just blend in with the sound of the station.

Television advertising presents a dilemma. On the one hand, it’s hard to get the viewer’s attention because of the cluttered ad environment. On the other, it’s easy because you have so many different and effective tools to use. You not only have an illustration, it’s in color and you can make it move. And, with today’s digital effects technology, you can make it jump, jiggle, dance, or morph in very unexpected and unusual ways. You get to use sound effects, music, and dialogue, too.

Don’t be afraid to try unconventional tactics to get attention with your television (or any other) advertising. Sometimes, an offbeat approach pays unexpected dividends. The single most important factor in gaining attention is being different. The crying baby always draws a response--unless it happens to be in the newborn room at the hospital where there are fifteen others crying the same tune. To make your ads work, make them stand out. It pays to pay attention to attention.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Image Advertising: Is It Worth It?

Let’s talk about your advertising. Why it works and why it doesn’t work a lot of the time. There are three basic advertising functions, which you must keep in mind. These are the goals that advertising can accomplish for the advertiser: image goals, sales goals, and positioning goals. They are not mutually exclusive and certainly many ad messages accomplish or attempt to accomplish more than one. But for now we will focus on image goals.

Image advertising goals are those sort of warm, fuzzy, amorphous ambitions that many advertisers have. They want people to feel good about their business or good about their company. There is no question that television is the great image medium. But keep in mind that those kind of images don’t sell a heck of a lot of merchandise, so image advertising needs to be used with great care. The key to doing this kind of advertising is to start by answering the question, who are we trying to influence? Who is the intended recipient of our message?

Legitimate image advertisers almost always have a very specific and narrow intended audience. These will tend to be companies like financial institutions, public utilities, health care companies, certain manufacturers or others who have very specific image problems. The people they are trying to reach will have some influence on the success or failure—the economic health—of the advertiser’s business. The root of addressing an image need through advertising isn’t to enhance the image—it’s ultimately to affect the bottom line, which can mean either profit or loss.

A company’s employees are a frequent target audience for advertisers. If the employees feel better about their company, they’re less inclined to do nasty things like go on strike, more apt to work harder, and less likely to leave for greener pastures, among other things. That’s why you’ll often see companies advertising on TV a year or so before their union contract negotiations begin. They want to soften up the opposition. They can’t very effectively address employees directly with messages about company love, but they can obliquely get the message across through such image ads on TV.

Sometimes advertisers spend to influence even smaller groups, like government regulators. If you’re in one of many kinds of regulated businesses, like public utilities, insurance, or telecommunications, your ability to make a profit is highly dependent on the attitudes toward you held by the public service commission or insurance commission or other regulatory body that governs your business. That group of five, ten, or fifteen citizens holds your fate in the palm of their hands.

Lastly, there’s another audience that image advertisers sometimes try to influence, but it’s one that they don’t talk about much. In fact, they’re usually not even conscious of their attempt to reach them. Many times, image ads are directed at the advertiser’s friends and acquaintances! If you’re the only bank in town that doesn’t advertise on TV, you may feel somewhat self-conscious at the country club when your peers and competitors are talking about their TV campaigns. There’s some keep-up-with-the-Jones’ in business life, too.

The danger of all image advertising is that it doesn’t directly influence the sales or other revenues of that company. But it can be profitable when it comes to getting the word out there about your small business.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Buying Good Word Of Mouth

Plenty of small business owners consider advertising a total waste of money. According to them, word of mouth is the best advertising and that’s something you can’t buy. They’re right, but only partly: word of mouth is the best, but you can buy it. That’s what good advertising does-—it buys word of mouth. Keep in mind, that “advertising” doesn’t have to be a million-dollar TV commercial on American Idol. A fifty-cent postcard announcing your new selection of life-enhancing widgets mailed to a targeted list of a couple of hundred potential customers is advertising, too. It’s the kind of advertising that buys some word of mouth.

When to advertise, how much to spend on advertising, even whether to advertise at all are questions that are at best difficult to answer for businesses in the automotive performance industry (or any other). On the one hand, you like to think that your reputation for good work and fair prices will draw people into your shop. On the other, you have to realize that if they don’t hear about you in some way, that elusive new customer isn’t going to even know you exist, much less that you have a strong reputation. And when you factor in all the competition you face, advertising becomes much more imperative.

Linda Hietala, who owns Reliable Welding and Speed in Enfield, Connecticut, with her husband Brad, agrees that you have to keep trying to attract new customers. “The best form of advertising is word of mouth and referrals,” she says, “but you can’t totally rely on that. You need to be in different publications so people can find your name and phone number.”

So how do advocates of small business advertising go about it? Hietala believes in the scattergun approach, using as many different promotion vehicles as she can afford and not relying on any single medium to hit all the targets. “We try to reach everybody in every different way,” she says. Reliable advertises in Speedway Scene and regional racing papers and also does track programs and similar publications. She’s also a believer in the Internet.

Like many speed shops, Reliable is also a heavy supporter of the local race scene. “We have a forty-foot parts trailer that we bring to one of the local race tracks,” Hietala explains. “That’s a good way for us to advertise because the track (Stafford Speedway) has, in addition to their weekly racing, special events through the year where they’re bringing in other touring series like the featherweight modifieds and the Busch North. Being visible there with a trailer, we’re reaching a lot of people.” Constantly assessing how well advertising performs is also vital Hietala believes. But she also gives each promotional outlet plenty of time to prove itself.

While these advertising opportunities are specific to speed shops and other automotive-related businesses, many similar ones exist for small business owners serving other markets. Many pet shops support their local animal shelter, for example, and clothing retailers are often big sponsors of local fashion shows. Of course, as with everything, one of the keys to success in advertising is consistency. This will require large amounts of time and money but in the long run it can pay off.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Friend And Follow Marketing

Did you know that more Americans use the Internet than read a newspaper every day? That’s bad news for publishers, but great news for business owners and managers looking for ways to reach customers. If you’re like most business operators when you think of the Internet, you visualize a website for your company—and plenty of them have been built at considerable cost and effort. But there are other ways to use the ever-evolving online medium that can be just as (if not more) effective—and costs a whole lot less.

One way to market in cyberspace is with a blog, a type of web presence that has many interesting possibilities. A blog can be nothing more than a simple collection of written entries about anything (or nothing) that’s posted on the web for the curious to read. There should also be a place for you to advertise and write about your company’s history and the things you do. You can also link to your shop’s conventional website. You might even be able to sell advertising on your blog to other local businesses as well as to your vendors. Blogs are cheap (often free!) and very, very easy to create. I got started at www.blogger.com (a service owned by Google) and just followed the easy online instructions.

Another approach is to sign up for Facebook or Twitter or one of the other rapidly proliferating social networks. While there are some major differences between blogging and marketing through social networks, many of the same principles apply. The main feature of both is a sort of message board where you make diary-like entries about topics of interest. The entries don’t have to be long or even particularly literate just as long as they’re about subjects you think your customers care about. The biggest added feature of a social network page is your ability to reach customers (and potential customers) who have signed up to “friend” you. With luck, they’ll keep their connection to you and see your messages every time they visit their own social site page.

But how do you use a blog to market your business? By making it the centerpiece of an online community of your customers and potential customers. What makes either one a “community” is your customers’ ability to post their own messages along with yours, either in response to the ones you’ve posted or about subjects that they’d like to discuss. In fact, it’s this interactive feature that sets a blog apart from a traditional website (although you can have similar features there, too). A blog or social network site also gives you opportunities to help the physical community as well, which most business owners consider good for business. A substantial side benefit is that your business enjoys some of the same “halo effect” that an event sponsor gets—at considerably less expense.

If putting your business into cyberspace has seemed like more trouble than it’s worth, maybe now is the time to reconsider your decision. A Facebook page or blog is cheap, easy, and can be a very effective marketing tool.


Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Selling In Cyberspace

Many business owners have considered how much - if any - time and money they should devote to marketing online. The Internet does offer many exciting business growth possibilities, however. The marketing possibilities are limited only by your imagination, your pocketbook, manpower, and patience.

Art and craft galleries, just one of the many types of businesses on the net, have been marketing online for many years. The website is essentially another complete business location--which happens to draw customers and artists from around the world who shop with their keyboard, mouse, and credit card. Artique Galleries' owner, Mike Stutland, put his Lexington, KY, galleries online in 1999 and says, “The web site has attracted customers from beyond our normal market area. It has brought people into our stores, especially through our links with many tourist information sites.” Those customers may well not have been reached otherwise and therefore represent new sales.

In order to compete for the attention of online customers, the former Chairman/CEO of Valentine Radford Advertising in Kansas City, Mo., Chuck Curtis, offers some tips based on the agency’s survey of 1000 online shoppers.

1. 89% of Internet shoppers use the Internet for product information. Make sure your web site is rich in product details.

2. 45% of Internet shoppers click on their local newspaper and 32% click on their local television station site. This is good news for businesses who can inexpensively buy advertising just on the local media’s web site.

3. Also buy advertising in the email news updates that local news media send out. About half of online shoppers have signed up for these.

4. 58% of these shoppers have signed up for an online loyalty program. It’s a smart idea to reward your best customers with a frequent buyer plan (like the frequent flier programs run by the airlines.) For example: Get a 10% discount on your next purchase when you spend $50.

5. More than a third of the survey (38%) use a wish list feature on the site for their purchases. These are items they would like to buy, but can’t purchase at the moment, and they register their desires online.

6. About two-thirds of the time a shopper will research a product online and then buy it in the store.

7. Many retailers will publish their coupons for in-store use online because the distribution costs are so much lower than putting them in the newspaper or on direct mail.

8. Between 40% and 60% of shoppers (depending upon the amount they spend) strongly object to shipping charges. Many retailers build the price of these into the products, or offer free shipping above a certain amount; e.g., “Free shipping when you spend $50 or more.”

9. 81% of shoppers expect to find a wider selection of products online. Remember that your market online is worldwide. If you find items that you can’t display in your store because of limited retail space, put them on your web site.

With these essential tips from the pros you can take your business to the next level when it comes to online marketing, business growth, and sales.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Building Business Without Cutting Prices

Price-cutting competitors are like rust on a steel tool: as soon as you clean it off, it starts forming again. And, just like insidious oxidation, price-cutters can’t be ignored. If you don’t pay attention, they’ll erode your company’s business. One way to respond to price competition is to meet or beat it at the lowball game. Unfortunately, there always seems to be somebody willing to go even lower and your bottom line suffers as a result. Is there any way one can respond to this unrelenting competition? Two automotive shop owners have found alternative solutions.

One way is to diversify so that you can afford to pass up a job or two without worrying about its impact on your bottom line. Pete Bennett, owner of CoachCraft, Inc., in Lexington, Kentucky, provides as many automotive restyling services as he can think of in a successful effort to build revenue and fully use his shop’s capacity. “As long as we’re promoting quality and being fair about pricing, I don’t worry too much about our competitors,” Bennett says. Volume is important, but not at the expense of quality. According to Bennett, who believes better work supports higher prices. “The quality speaks for itself. “

Bennett not only tries to attract many different types of work, he also maintains a balance between retail customers and dealer subcontracts. He estimates that his business is split just about equally between the two. Retail jobs generate a higher profit margin, of course, but the dealer business provides volume to maintain capacity utilization. Because he has both, Bennett can afford to maintain his prices, even to dealers.

Lee Muntean, owner of AAA Convertible & Sun Roofs in Costa Mesa, California, has adopted exactly the opposite strategy for beating the competition. He targets a niche market and does one thing—but he does it very, very well. This approach provides a strong floor under his prices.

His pricing for dealers and general repair shops isn’t driven by a need to beat the competition, but there is another factor he takes into account: the dealer’s margin. When it comes to pricing work subcontracted to him by body shops and garages, he’s careful to allow them to make a profit without undercutting his retail price. “One thing I don’t want them to do is give the jobs away. That hurts me,” Muntean says. In the ideal situation, the garage’s customer would pay the same if he came directly to Muntean and vice versa.

Any business owner or manager will tell you there is always somebody willing to undercut your price. One way to respond is to make a knee-jerk price cut of your own. As these two successful business owners demonstrate, though, that’s not necessarily the only way to build your business.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Vying for Advertising Attention

One of the biggest, fastest-growing segments of the automotive performance industry is the off-road market, but beware of approaching it as if it were a monolithic mass. The market ranges from axle-busting rock crawlers and dust-eating dune racers to soccer moms whose grill-guarded, suspension-jacked, fog-lighted SUV’s never touch any surface rougher than the gravel drive at their weekend home at the lake. Each customer is different, but they’ve all got wallets ready to open to trick out their 4WD ride.

What differentiates these customers from each other is the way they use their off-road vehicle. What’s usually the same is what they want from the shop they choose: knowledgeable service. Industry experts believe that you’ve got to know the customer: “You’ve got the customer who knows the product, and he doesn’t want to talk to somebody who doesn’t know anything,” industry veteran Rusty Megois says. “Then you’ve got the other guy who has done the Internet research, read the magazines, but they’re still not sure. They rely a lot on what you tell them.”

That’s why shop and off-road park owner Carl Roy says he and his staff don’t sell anybody anything. Instead, “We explain things like the importance between differential ratio and tire size, weight balance and distribution, ground clearance, approach and departure angles, wheel speed versus the inertia of the vehicle.” He operates Performance Off-Road, Inc., in Alexandria, Kentucky.

Roy stresses the importance of learning as much as you can about the individual customer: “When it comes to what they want, it depends on their level of experience. For some of them, name recognition means a great deal, there’s a certain amount of brand loyalty. Others, it may come down to who had the best magazine ad that month.” The hard-core customer still sets the standard for the market, even though there are vast differences from one to another in that market segment and their tastes are changing, too.

Another factor to take into consideration is price. Price doesn’t seem to be as much of a concern to off-road customers as it is in other performance markets, although it’s always there in the customer’s mind somewhere.

There is also the influence of the Internet, which as Megois believes, “has made us all more competitive." But Roy believes that: “The Internet gives us a focal point to start the discussion. A lot of people will come in with an ad they’ve printed out and say ‘I’d like this for my Jeep. Can you beat that price?' That creates the opportunity for us to take them out and illustrate that there are differences—qualitative differences, warranty differences, product support differences, engineering philosophies—and how those transcend the price points of the product.”

Ultimately, the experts believe that quality time does the trick. “The amount of time we spend with the customer is our competitive advantage,” Roy says. “Everybody out there is selling the same stuff we are. The only advantages we offer are the experience and abilities we have.”

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Dynamic Manager Handbooks - Priceless Advice For A Dollar

Sometimes you need to brush up on a single issue you're facing in your business. For just ninety-nine cents, you can turn to the Dynamic Manager's Handbooks for a quick refresher on sales, marketing, advertising, or several other disciplines that affect your company's bottom line.

I'm planning an even dozen for release this year. Here are the first seven:

Customer Relations: The Dynamic Manager's Handbook of Customer Satisfaction
Five Rules Of Advertising: The Dynamic Manager’s Handbook Of Small Business Advertising
Marketing In Cyberspace: The Dynamic Manager’s Handbook Of Social Media Marketing
Beat The Big Box: The Dynamic Manager’s Handbook Of Winning The Retail Battle
Promotion and Public Relations: The Dynamic Manager’s Handbook Of Alternative Ways To Build Your Business
First Call Selling: The Dynamic Manager’s Handbook On How To Make Sales On The First Call
Sales Promotions: The Dynamic Manager's Handbook Of 23 Ad Campaigns and Sales Promotions You Can Use

You can find the Dynamic Manager Handbooks for Kindle at Amazon.com or your Nook at BN.com.

Best of all, they're only ninety-nine cents!

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Sales-promoting Ideas

How about some ideas to build sales? The supply of ideas here is nearly limitless, but the inventory of ideas is tapped so frequently that there are very few truly original ones. Here are some of the principal types and a few examples of each.

Theme sales are everywhere. Anniversary sale, Presidents’ Day sale, Back to School sale, the Boss is Gone sale. Every major holiday and a few imaginary ones are excuses for having a sale. So are important dates in the company’s history, like the boss’s birthday, the anniversary of the big fire of ‘06, and the ever-popular grand-reopening sale.

Price and item advertising is another sales-generating approach that’s used and abused widely. Consumers are very jaded by such offers, especially when they’re couched in “percent off” terms. They’ve also come to expect that the sale price of a given item is probably the real everyday price, so something stronger has to be presented in order to overcome their skepticism. The best approach is to be as specific as possible in the claims presented such as, “Our widgest are now on sale for $9.99 and they are available at that price only until Friday.” The consumer assumes that since those specific facts can be checked easily, they must be true.

Contests are fun and can be good traffic builders if they are fresh, different, and run for a short time. The entry period has to be close enough to the awarding of prizes to prompt consumer action now. The prizes have to be enticing enough to alter the consumer’s behavior. And the contest has to be simple enough to not block someone from entering.

Many businesses give away items like coffee cups or tote bags. Such premiums aren’t bad, but they can be expensive on a per-customer-reached basis. Good premium items have high visibility and long user life, extending the exposure of the advertiser’s message over as long a period of time as possible. Many advertisers make the mistake of offering premiums without advertising them. In other words, they reward their current customers with the free stuff (which isn’t bad in itself) but they forget to let non-customers know that there’s yet another reason (the free stuff) to come to their store. Once again, identifying a clearly defined goal for the campaign is an essential part of the planning process.

Loyalty programs or frequent buyer rewards are increasingly popular, driven in large part by the ever-decreasing cost of data base marketing systems. You can get air line miles for buying just about anything these days. But there are other variations on that theme that serve the same purpose, which is to get the best customer to buy ever-increasing quantities from the sponsor. Shopper bonus cards, punch cards giving a free item after the purchase of a set number of other items, percent of purchase rebates after multiple purchases are all forms of the loyalty program.

Cross promotions, which carry customers from one business to another, can be very successful. The video store that gives take-out pizza coupons. The restaurant that sells discount theater tickets. The carpet store that gives a coupon good for carpet cleaning. These are all examples of ways two different businesses can cross-promote, share the cost of the advertising, and produce an ad campaign that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

You should never be at a loss for something to say in your ads. Just look around at the thousands of advertisements you see every day and borrow one you can adapt to your business goals.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

The Last Ad Works Best

A common misconception about most advertising is that it creates a need to buy in the customer’s mind. If you run a home improvement center in the real world, the need to buy arises because the customer’s garden hose burst this morning or a skunk dug up their lawn last night. Those events are what brought the customer into the market for a new hose or some insecticide. If they were exposed to your advertising just after those things happened, they are going to be very receptive to your message. Customers tend to respond to the last ad they saw or heard in the window of time after the need arose and just before they make their decision to purchase.

Since skunks don’t attack every lawn in your market the same week, not all customers know they need grub killer at exactly the same time. Some need it this week, some next week; some the week after. The week you’re not advertising, you miss the chance to influence the customers who have chosen to buy that week. Sure, there’s some residual effect from the advertising you did in the previous weeks, but the ad with the greatest impact is the one the customer heard most recently.

So, what does this mean for your advertising budget? Should you spend more? Can you spend less? The answer is a resounding “maybe.” The amount of spending isn’t the issue here. What’s most important is that you find a way to advertise as continuously as possible. Generally speaking, it’s preferable to spread a small budget over more weeks than to bunch it up for more exposure during a shorter period (commonly called flighting). Don’t spend your entire month’s budget on one full-page ad. Run one quarter-page ad every week for four weeks instead. Don’t run 300 radio spots in one week, then remain silent for the next five—schedule 50 spots each week for six weeks. Or even 25 per week for twelve weeks!

This is not to say that you need to advertise at a uniform level year ‘round.You should still vary the amount of exposure you buy according to the sales you expect to generate each period. Nor does this mean that you shouldn’t heavy-up for a weekend sale or other short-term promotion. What it does mean, though, is that one ad by itself doesn’t work. You need consistent repetition to make your advertising work the same way you need lots and lots of seeds to start a lawn.


Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.