Issue #14

In this issue:

• Greater Marketing Velocity Moves The Entire Company Forward

• Charting Your Business Destiny On Purpose:

Greater Marketing Velocity Moves The Entire Company Forward

At what velocity is your business moving? It is moving forward, isn't it? If your business is standing still, it's actually moving backwards. That's the net result, at least, if the industry, your competitors and your customer are all moving ahead without you. With this said, if you've read any of my columns, you know what is coming next. Yes, you can zoom ahead - and stay leaps and bounds ahead - with a well-oiled marketing machine keeping your business moving.

The key is achieving greater marketing velocity, the rate of speed at which your company creates a steady stream of preferred customers, at the best possible cost. You can only reach this velocity with a well-disciplined, on-going approach to the overall marketing of the company. Without it, your marketing velocity will be close to zero and continually overcoming "marketing inertia" is costly, inefficient, and sometimes simply impossible. It is much easier to keep a company with marketing velocity in motion.

Previously, I've presented the notion of achieving maximum return on your marketing dollars invested, or ROMI. Knowing your new customer acquisition cost, and the lifetime value of a customer you can make certain. Smart business owners and CEO's have a good handle on these numbers, and they know what works best in generating high quality leads for their business. Finding the exact optimum marketing velocity for your company will enable you to control the growth of your business.

Strategy is king. Say it again, until you believe it. Strategy is king. Repeatable and predictable marketing models are critical to profits - otherwise, like Sisyphus, you are destined to "roll the stone" uphill every time you need to generate or stimulate a stream of revenue. That gets tiring. Sisyphus was cursed with his unending chore. You're not.

Here are seven steps to guide you in achieving greater marketing velocity. With these things in place, you can throttle your marketing system to behave as you require, generating a steady stream of new business:

• Evaluate the frequency and magnitude of your marketing efforts. Are you mailing to your existing customers? Are your display ads working, and are they large enough to bring sufficient leads? Too many small businesses, consultants and other professionals under-market their business. Perhaps this is due to budget and resource constraints but more often it's because of insufficient resources and the lack of a clear, funded strategy.

• Reduce the resistance and objections that people have about deciding to do business with your company. Figure it out. Focus on their buying criteria, and reduce the risk. Focus, too, on serving your best customers. Do you use testimonials to provide the social proof that people seek?

• Test the strength of your message. Why should anyone do business with your company given the choices in the market? Find out why your best customers come back! Determine why others do not. (Nobody said this was easy, but it sure it critical to you achieving your business destiny.) Work on it - and hope that your competitors are too lazy to do the same.

• Fire that unproductive, invisible employee - status quo. He (or she) is killing your business, convincing everyone else in the company to resist change, to stop thinking, and just keep things as they are, often for no reason. While you are at it, fire your non-performing, bad attitude employees - after, of course, giving them a 25th chance to smarten up. You can't achieve greater marketing velocity with these types of employees fighting you every step of the way.

• Implement a solid lead generation system, consisting of several sources of leads that fit into your model. Increase the magnitude of those programs that bring the best quality leads.

• Understand the lifetime value of a customer. Analyze the revenue stream, and consider the impact of a formal referral program. You will see exponential results.

• Find out what your customers really want from your company. Understand the "surface" benefits, then dig deep to find out how having these benefits really benefit them further. You have no choice but to become a quasi-student of psychology - and studying those things that make humans open their wallets and give you their hard earned money.

The alternative to building a strong marketing system is that you will continue to generate more of what you have today. Status quo will be running your company. How does that saying go? "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results." The first thing you ought to do differently is to start sending sales letters to your customers and prospects. Plant seeds now for a Fall harvest.

Next week: Forget about your "unique selling proposition". Using hypnotic marketing techniques, I'll share with you some secrets for attracting all of the business you want.

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Charting Your Business Destiny On Purpose

There are two kinds of business owners, at least.

Those who 'get it' about marketing and customer service, and have a good firm grasp on the business they are in, and those who remain totally clueless. While the clueless can succeed in business, at some level and in spite of themselves, they never really hit their stride and experience the exhilaration that comes from having everything working as it should. In a tough economy, especially, those who really 'get it' have a solid foundation for the future, and for riding out the storm. Charting your business destiny, and fully enjoying the journey, first requires that you 'get it' about marketing your business.

So, let me ask you, do you get it? Do you really get what it's all about?

Do you even care? Sadly, many small business owners don't get it at all. Maybe you are sailing along in your comfort zone making money hand over fist, with people lined up to hand you their hard-earned money, and you don't even know why they keep coming back to you. This scenario is more common than you might think. But for those that do, indeed, want to take their business where they know it can go, a bit of hard work and smart decision-making lies ahead.

How do you benchmark yourself as you continue on this journey called "small business success"? How do you chart your business destiny to ensure that you reach the next harbor, to use a nautical metaphor? The good news is there are many ways to gauge your own company's marketing performance. Gross revenue is certainly a good place to start.

Here's a partial checklist to gauge whether or not you really get it about marketing. Of course, these points ultimately center on your marketing, but touch upon additional areas:

• Your top line revenue is growing steadily, at a rate you can handle, and you are meeting your gross profit margin goals. This is a good indication that you are doing things right, and your marketing strategy is working. Your focus, if this is on target, then becomes fine tuning your marketing system to achieve the exact optimal performance goals such as cost per lead, new customer acquisition cost, customer retention rates, and both size of purchase and frequency of transactions.

• You are truly focused on the underlying wants and desires of your customers. You need to know why people do business with you, what benefits they seek on the surface, and the deeper benefits that provide the true value to your customer. Make sense? Take the time to understand the emotional reasons for their purchase decision.

• You look outside of your industry for innovative ideas. Get out into the world and study what is working in other industries. Study how you can differentiate your company by delivering innovative services or product features and benefits. This is an endless process.

• You are not basing your marketing decisions solely on your own beliefs and attitudes about certain marketing methods. I wish I had a subway token for every business owner who has told me that 'direct marketing doesn't work in my industry." Further, you cannot base anticipated response on your own habits. Just because you may not open a letter, tune into a radio station, etc, does not mean your target market behaves the same way. Remember, you are not your target market.

• You actually have some semblance of a marketing plan in place, and a few pennies of each dollar brought into the company is earmarked to bring in the next dollar. You realize that marketing is an on-going process and unending effort. You can design a system that works but it takes discipline to create it, and then you can make it work each day for you.

• You understand the difference between sales and marketing, and you are committed to high performance goals in both areas. These functions are not synonymous. Marketing is the sum total of what you do to create qualified prospects for the sales people, whose job is to assist the prospect in making the right buying decision. Simple, right? See the difference?

• You are focused on the long-term revenue stream that comes from a trusting business relationship with your customer. In other words, you are willing to give up a little (or a lot of) profit on the initial sale to make it up on the future sale. For example, a restaurant should focus on breaking even on a new customer acquisition program and in stimulating repeat business. Once a patron is "trained" to enjoy the dining experience, they stand a good chance of becoming regular customers.

• Your products and services are priced correctly, not merely "guestimated". The SWAG approach (scientific wild-arsed guess) could be hurting your opportunity to maximize front end/back end sales. A pricing study will determine the exact best price for your products. (Send me an email if you'd like some pointers on this.)

One final word. Business owners often fail at the job of internal marketing.

If you truly get it, your employees enjoy working for your company. They are treated with dignity and respect, are trained properly, have the tools to do their job professionally and at a high performance level. They know their responsibilities, and are compensated fairly. They have families, dreams, and a personal life, too. Demand high performance but recognize their contribution. They can make you rich if you let them. As you chart your business destiny, keep in mind who is going to be doing the rowing!

Need help marketing your business? Go to www.jmbmarketing.com/letushelp and tell us what you are trying to accomplish.

If your sales letters need a tune up, click here: www.jmbmarketing.com/critique . Be sure to request our free report "27 Rock Solid Reasons to Send a Sales Letter" freereport@jmbmarketing.com

Bob Martel
JMB Marketing

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