Sales and Marketing with Bill Doerr15 Second Speed Read
To most of us running a smaller business, 'Marketing' means "promoting awareness and generating response" from qualified prospects for our products and services.
Unfortunately, the factors of mushy messages, limited funds, expensive media and not having a plan to guide our marketing decisions can leave you with less than ideal results. Fortunately, a new business service is changing all that -- this article tells you why and how.
The Man
I recently had the pleasure of meeting a 'serial entrepreneur'. His name is Joe Grushkin.
Joe is the embodiment of that term. He's been a leading producer for a company that sold directly to homeowners (no, it wasn't encyclopedias) and developed a field force of representatives that grew 100 times in size in just a few years under his leadership.
He went on to own a number of franchises for an international shipping organization, developed them all into highly profitable ventures and, when the time was right, sold them off . . . pocketing quite a handsome sum as a result.
Joe could have easily retired while maintaining an above-average lifestyle to which he'd become accustomed. But as he told me, "I kept getting out of one business only to be drawn into another". Safe to say, Joe's plans for retirement were (once again) put 'On Hold'.
The Idea
Always the thinker, Joe had an idea to help local businesses promote their products and services. His latest business venture is called: InLineAdz.
InLineAdz reflects the need of so many firms -- possibly even yours! -- to leverage the power of emerging media such as the world-wide web and digital technology to build awareness and market response for a business in a way that is local, effective and affordable.
The Motivation
Joe is a business advisor to businesses in a number of fields that include manufacturing, financial services, retailer, MLM, sales training, medical devices, and so on.
What Joe discovered is how slow many firms are at adapting to the opportunity to market their products and services that modern technology and marketing media suggests.
Joe committed to "do something" about this situation and his latest venture, InLineAdz is his thoughtful response to that need of his fellow businessowners.
The Method
InLineAdz is a simple concept and Joe executes it exquisitely.
First, find a local business in a community with a high volume of traffic (eyeballs).
Third, dynamically display useful information on the screen that includes local and national weather, news, sports, stock market activities, and so on. About every 10 seconds, InLineAdz also displays a professionally produced infomercial about a local business that always includes a call-to-action and a web-based response-mechanism.
Fourth, invite viewers to visit the InLineAdz website where they can browse local businesses (and, their offers!) to their hearts' content.
Each advertiser's messaging is replayed about 4 - 6 times per hour per location and, over the course of a year's time, literally hundreds of thousands of messaging impressions are delivered to the local market for "less than a cup of coffee a day".
That's effective AND efficient, isn't it?
The Rationale
If you're a small to medium-sized business owner, you know 'marketing' is an essential activity for your success. Afterall, people can't buy from you if they don't know about you, can they?
So practically speaking, marketing for a small business really boils down to 2 things:
1. promoting what you want to sell, and
2. generating response from qualified prospects
That being so, your next challenge comes when you actually seek to 'raise awarenenss' and 'generate response' from your marketplace.
This involves four (4) key factors:
• message
• money
• media
• method
Together, these determine how effectively you'll get your message consistently and regularly in front of qualified prospects for your business.
That's easier said than done. Why? Well, consider the four (4) factors we just identified:
MESSAGE
Small business owners are pretty good at what they do. Unfortunately, creating highly effective marketing messages is not one of them! That's why marketing firms exist.
Want proof? Go to a networking event and ask a business owner, "What do you do?". Odds are pretty good you'll get an answer that will be either: confusing, convoluted or centered on them, not their prospect and their needs. You know it's true. So when it comes to creating a professional message, a DIY message will rarely be on a par with the kind of message that a professional marketer can create for you.
MONEY
Call it 'budget' if you wish. Bottom line is that marketing requires an investment of your precious (i.e. limited) resources of time, staff, expertise and yes . . . money. For a number of smaller businesses, they either haven't planned to invest in marketing on a regular basis (e.g. "Hey Mary, this guy's here and wants us to buy an ad in his paper . . . we got any money in the account to do so?" is a comment made far more often than you might think in small business America these days!) Or, if they have, they suddenly realize that the cost to buy a 'ticket' into the big media 'ballgame' is not exactly inexpensive. As a result, a number of marketing media options are effectively eliminated from consideration before they're even able to be used and create value for the business.
MEDIA
As we just saw, a limited amount of money limits the quality and the quantity of marketing messages you can use to promote your business. It's a 'damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don't' kind of thing. Unless you can afford to do so, spending huge sums of money to use the more expensive promotional media often means you must give up the quantity and quality of messages as well as settle for a severely limited duration of your messaging campaign. Most businesses can't afford to run a single advertisement during the SuperBowl. True, Apple Computer did that back in 1984 and won big. But today, that kind of promotional option would be hard to justify to your board-of-directors and even harder to explain to your spouse! So being prudent and working with limited funds usually means working with less potent and less effective media. Not a promising situation, is it?
METHOD
I've left this for last because it's a marketing success factor that is so neglected by small businesses. You may call this a 'plan'. You may have committed it to writing. Or, not. And if you have one - in writing - you're a rare find. If you also use it to direct how you'll spend your precious time, money and energy to promote your business . . . you're an even more unique individual. Sadly, most smaller businessowners either have no plan or are not using it to promote their business . . . by design, not accident. That's a shame. Afterall, having a 'method' to help you think out key decisions before they manifest means you're making fewer marketing decisions 'on-the-spot' and, as a result, you're likely to be making much better / more effective ones when you do.
An Affordable and Effective Alternative to Unaffordable Marketing Media
I don't know if you're at a point in your business marketing where you'd like to see better results. I don't know if you feel like you're running out of viable options to use to promote awareness of your business and generate more response to it from well-qualified prospects. I don't know if you're thinking about 2011 and how you'll use your limited resources of time, money, staff and expertise to market your business as effectively, efficiently and profitably.
But I do know this . . . if you don't investigate using the kind of media that you can afford to use on a sustained basis, that puts you in-front of qualified, local prospects in a manner that is as professional as you are, then you may be losing out in the coming year to your competitors who do.
As you wind down 2010 and plan (please do plan!!) for 2011, I hope you weigh your options carefully and act decisively . . . and make 2011 the best year yet for you and your family.
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Joe Grushkin, CEO / InLineAdz is an experienced business owner, leader and advisor. His latest business, InLineAdz.com offers local businesses an affordable, sustainable and highly effective way to market their products and services for 'the cost of a cup of coffee per day'. If you'd like to learn more about Joe and his innovative marketing approach or becoming a distributor of this compelling new business marketing service, you can do so by visiting: InlineAdz.com or JoeGrushkin.com
For more information, please visit Bill's TNNWC Bio.
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