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Getting Off The Advertising And Sales Rollercoaster
Seeing the results of advertising your business can be like watching a roller coaster. The day you run your ad you see a flurry of activity; your ph0ne starts ringing, your web site traffic increases and/ or potential clients visit your store. Your hopes soar. sales go up. Two or three days pass and the response goes down. You look at the bill for the advertising and your jaw drops. Your hopes descend. Nancy called me from Portland, Oregon with just this problem. Every time one of her ads appears in a local publication, customers start walking in the door of her home furnishing store. A few days later the number of prospects and sales goes down. Her advertising gets results, but the thousands of dollars she is paying each month is killing her profits. What can she do? Whether you advertise your consulting business in The Harvard Business Review or your interior decorating service in the Penny Saver, your ad will cost significant dollars. How can you make your advertising pay for itself? How can you use advertising to create a STEADY stream of business? Write Your Ad to Sell and To Generate Leads Of all the people who could benefit from your products and services, what percentage is likely to buy today? Hopefully a few, but the majority are more likely to need your services tomorrow, next week or next month. Write your ad to prompt people to buy and if they're not interested in making a purchase, to contact you. When you write your ad: 1. Sell your products or services by selling your solution. 2. Prompt prospects to buy. Include a call to action. 3. Motivate prospects to give you their contact information. For each person who responds to your ad and makes a purchase today, you should be able to get ten qualified prospects to contact you. Once you have their contact information, you can send them a regular email or postcard for far less than it would cost to run your ad on a weekly basis. Follow Up On Your Advertising An ad can be the first step in marketing your products and services but unless you follow up, it may be the last. Its what you do after your ad runs that determines whether you are able to make it pay for itself in the days and months to come. Let's say your ad works in getting people to visit your web site, call you or come into your store. What's the next step? How can you follow up to increase your sales? 1. Make sure you get their contact information so you can follow up. 2. Whether people stopped by your web site, left a ph0ne message, emailed you or visited your store Ð follow up promptly. Get back to them within the day, if not sooner. A prospect is most likely to buy or start a profitable relationship when he/she is looking for a solution. Let your leads linger and they'll go stale. If you wait prospects may contact other service providers or stores, and you've given them time to make their purchase through someone else. 3. Respond immediately. Use a ph0ne call or an email to let them know you understand the problem they want solved and that you can help them. Even a personalized autoresponder message will do the job. 4. Market to your in-house list of contacts. If you want people to remember you when they have a need and are ready to make a decision to buy, make sure they think of you as the solution provider. The best way to do this is to regularly provide ideas, tips and information that your prospects want. 5. Create opportunities for personal contact, whether through your print mailings, ezine or web site, you want to prompt prospects to contact you to discuss their needs and / or place their order. Ask them what they want, what they are looking for. When they send you an email, follow up with a call. Tell them how to contact you, how to schedule a personal conversation and then follow up with a call. Advertising is an expensive ticket to marketing your products and services. Use these strategies to make sure you get your money's worth and you'll find your advertising paying for itself over and over. Instead of getting your thrills from watching your business go up and down, you'll find yourself enjoying the excitement of watching your profits steadily move up. - 2004 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved. The author, Charlie Cook, helps service professionals and small business owners attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up for the Free Marketing Plan eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business' at http://www.marketingforsuccess.com
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Careers and Employment Discounting Your Way Into Sales Oblivion I don't even like saying the word d---------g. I have literally obliterated it from my dictionary with a black marking pen. I'll bite my tongue until it bleeds, before I say the word. Do You Really Want Local County Contracts? If you really want to secure government contacts at the county level; there is a lot more than just getting on a list and bidding on a solicitation. Government even at the country level is a little corrupt and insider-ish. You can complain about the evils, backdoor deals and wasting of tax payers money or you can remember that the imperfect system is run by humans and what goes on in generally what should be expected. No difference than the shenanigans of the Catholic Priests. 5 Secrets to Managing Your Sales Manager Productively Many people believe that the main reason for representatives leaving their organisation is that of money in that they leave for a bigger salary. In fact, the biggest reason why people leave organisations is that the role they are doing is no longer offering any challenge or excitement. The second reason is due to the behaviour and capability of the immediate line manager. More often than not, the two are strongly linked with the manager taking little interest in the representative's development and as such the representative feels under valued and bored due to the lack of attention and challenge. Increase Retail Sales With Meetups I recently attended the monthly Italian language Meetup here in Little Rock. Meetups are informal social gatherings of people with similar interests in a particular topic. Topics for Meetups range from political to cultural to intellectual to fun. Producing Premium Performance One of the major issues that arises in managing a small or medium size business is in the area of employee performance. Many business owners are frustrated with the poor performance of their team or some individuals within their team. No matter how hard they try, they don't seem to be able to create a sustainable improvement in performance. The tendency is to blame the employees for poor performance. However, more often than not, the problem stems from not establishing an effective performance management framework. Sales Competence Isn't About Quota Performance! Compounding the problem are two myths regarding measures of competency in sales. We Will Make It Back----- A Fictional Story Based on Fact About Sales Management Success Bill Borders stepped up onto the podium. He had just been introduced as the new Vice President of Sales for Kiechler Building Supplies. As he looked out at the fifty seven faces staring back at him, time seemed to stop and everyone was motionless. Bills mind wandered. This wasn't a nervous reaction; it was more of a reality check. How to Keep Projects From Spinning Out Of Control Are you involved in projects that seem to go nowhere in a hurry? Snuff Out the Competition Without Leaving a Mark! Does the competition drive you crazy? Are they relentless about taking your clients away? Are customer loyalties becoming a thing of the past? Sales Coaching... Fact or Fiction? The old adage in selling has always been, "Find out what they want, then, give it to them." The fundamentals of selling are clearly that elemental. The application thereof, however, continues to be the litmus test that quickly separates the skilled from the rest. 3 Steps To Getting A Sales Meeting The best way to get a new customer is to clearly identify who you want to do business with and then get in front of them. They can then see what you look like, possibly see what your product looks like and also examine any data or statistics you might have. It gives you the ideal opportunity to start building a positive working relationship with your potential customer. Leadership Lessons for Sales Managers Leadership, like class, is hard to define, but easy to spot. 8 Line Items of a Trade Show Budget Budget Guidelines for Trade Show Marketing Business Career, Executive Coaching Article - Perfection vs. Excellence "(Howard) Hughes never learned how to convert his knowledge to practical application. Instead he sought a perfection that assured failure." - From Empire: The Life, Legend and Madness of Howard Hughes by Donald L. Bartlett & James B. Steel How to Write a Business Plan Sales Section for a Mobile Service We all agree one of the most important parts of any business is Sales. We also know that to get sales we must advertise to let potential customers know of our offerings. When writing a business plan you must have a clear and concise picture of how you will generate sales for your business if you are to attract favorable loans and proper capital to succeed. I cannot impress upon you enough of the importance of these sections in your business plan. So much so that I want to offer you this sample to assist you in writing your business plan for your next most important entrepreneurial endeavor. Is Your Forecast Too Sunny? How to Improve the Accuracy of Sales Forecasts As spring moves to summer, the forecast should be for warmer and sunnier weather. What is the forecast for your business? Is the outlook sunny or cloudy? Snowflakes Improve Holiday Sales Snowflakes are beautiful! How to Organize a Seminar or an Event Seminars and events have always been implemented as a holistic experience to participants. Thus, organizing an event requires extensive planning and preparation with most work implemented at least a few months before the actual event. Most of the time, seminars seem to run like clockwork with all events flowing smoothly according to schedule. In reality however, much groundwork has been worked on with the purpose of developing the right atmosphere in addition to a beneficial experience to partipants. Are Your Business Proposals Losing You Sales? 10 Steps to Get the ?Yes? You Deserve Your ability to write an effective and persuasive business proposal directly relates to your level of success. Write a great proposal and you'll get the contract or make the sale. Write a ho-hum proposal and your prospect will go elsewhere. Sales Plan? Whats a Sales Plan? In the past, if you said the word "plan" to me, I would bolt and run. I'm the "creative type," a former ballet dancer and choreographer-I'm terrible with details. When I was dancing professionally, all the details were taken care of; all I had to do was show up and dance. Even when I was choreographing, as long as I met my deadline for when the dance needed to be complete, I could go with the moment, go with the impulse and see where the dance led.
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