I often have conversations with clients that go something like this:

Me: You have a good, clear definition of who you help and how you help them and a good offer. Time to start getting your message in front of prospective customers.

Client: Great! OK! So I’m going to start sending a monthly ezine.

Me: Good idea.

Client: OK, so now what do I do?

Me: Well, do you have a list of email addresses? Do you have some kind of service to manage your list and handle address changes and that sort of thing?

Client: Huh?

In order to have effective marketing you need to have certain systems and elements in place that will support that marketing. I call these systems and elements Marketing Assets.

More About Marketing Assets

The term, assets, is used most commonly in business accounting and refers to economic resources owned by a business which can be converted into cash (although cash, too, is an asset).

Assets are valuable because they enable the business to do things to make money.

If you own a pizza restaurant, some of your assets include:

• car or van so you can make deliveries
• Equipment like ovens, mixers, and refrigerators
• if you own the building, the building and land are assets

Assets can also be intangible. For example, if you have a secret sauce recipe that makes your pizzas that best in town, that can be considered an asset. Patents and trademarks are another type of intangible asset.

What all assets of this type have in common is this:

they add the business’ capacity for serving customers and making money.

Marketing Assets are a specifc type of business asset: a Marketing Asset is something (information, a process, property) that enables your marketing to get better results (more people clicking through, more referrals, more inquiries).

Example: Using an Ezine for Marketing

An ezine is a very common type of marketing activity used by small business owners. If you enjoy writing, sending an ezine out at least once a month is a great way to add value with a helpful article along with promoting your latest offers.

So what assets do you need to have in place so that your ezine marketing gets results? Here are assets I recommend:

• Email addresses of people who are interested in getting your ezine.
• A service that manages the email addresses: adds new subscribers, verifies their contact information, allows subscribers to change or discontinue their subscription
• A service that allows you to send your ezine to subscribers (most services that manage email addresses manage message broadcasts too)
• Content that you will use in your articles — either content you write yourself or content written by someone else
• A website where email subscribers visit to learn more about you, your business, and programs you’re promoting.

When I first began writing an ezine, I used Microsoft Outlook to maintain email addresses and mail the ezine. It was fine when I was sending emails to ten or so people.

Once my list exceeded ten addresses, it literally took hours to mail my ezine because I had to make sure the addresses were up to date, remove or edit addresses, check for duplicates, etc. etc.

It was a ton of work and I eventually moved everything to aweber which is an email broadcast and list management service. Aweber also asks everyone who subscribes to verify their subscription (double opt-in) which insures only people who really want my ezine are getting it.

More Marketing Assets

Following are the marketing assets you need for other common small business marketing activities.

• List of email addresses (preferably double-opt in)
• An ezine or newsletter
• Subscription with email and broadcast management service
• Contact information of blogs, websites, or print publications who will publish your articles
• Blog you own
• Website you own
• Profile you can use to set up social network accounts (note you don’t have to have a profile ready to go but it sure beats having to fill out those profiles over and over and over again)
• Domain names you own
• Shopping cart
• Business cards
• Brochures, flyers, postcards, etc.
• Presentations
• Class or presentation Handouts
• Assessments
• Recording system
• Contact information such as telephone numbers and mailing addresses
• Strategic alliances with their own email lists

What’s absolutely critical is to remember this:

You don’t need every single marketing asset listed. You only need the ones required for the marketing activity you’ve chosen for your business.

Steps to Identifying Marketing Assets You Need

1. Choose a marketing activity

For example, Dave is a travel agent and he is going to do presentations at local schools on family friendly vacation spots. He wants to get some new clients out of the people attending as well as some referrals

2. Think through what you will need to make that activity effective

Dave thinks through the steps involved in giving his presentations:

“Let’s see, I’ll need a list of local schools and maybe I should include private schools and pre-schools, too. And it would be nice to have the name and number of the person with whom I’ll make arrangements.

“When I talk to them, they may want to know why they’d want to bring me in so it would be helpful to have a simple script to organize my thoughts.

“If they like my idea, they may want some things so they can publicize my presentation. So a bio would be helpful and some flyers that they can post on bulletin boards and give out to families would be good, too.

“On the day I present, I definitely want to bring handouts I can give to families with an outline of my talk along with how to contact me. And I’d love to be able to keep in touch with the people who attend so I’d like to have some kind of offer–maybe I’ll give them a half-sheet flyer which with instructions on how to subscribe to my monthly ezine.”

3. Run your list by a knowledgeable colleague or ask for input from a discussion group. You may even want to pay an expert for an hour of their time in exchange for helping your finalize your list.

4. Ask for recommendations about services to use. There are tons of providers for email list management, website hosting, domain name registration, you name it.

These services are important because when they don’t work it reflects badly on your public image. I encourage you to ask other business owners to recommend who they’ve had good experiences with.

Final Points

As you read this you may be feeling “sheesh, this is a ton of work!” And there is definitely effort involved in thinking through and setting up assets so your marketing gets results.

But here are a few things that will make the work easier:

1.  Setting up marketing assets is something you typically do once and then you reap the benefits for months even years. For example, you only have to set up the forms for an email list once. After that the list management service handles everything.

2. Marketing assets make you a far more attractive strategic ally when it comes to cross-promotions and affiliate opportunities.

Remember at the beginning of this article I said assets are economic resources that improve your ability to earn more money?

A business with an established weekly ezine and a double opt-in list is a potentially valuable strategic ally for other businesses offering complementary products and services.

Many small business owners I talk to always seem to be playing catch up when it comes to their marketing.

Last week when I told a small business owner that she was doing a good job with her marketing, she replied “Oh, but I have so much to do!” in an apologetic tone.

So I asked her, “What is it that you have to do?”

“Well,” she said, “I need to redo my website, write a new brochure, update my Facebook page, and call clients whom I haven’t seen for a while. I’m also wondering, do I need to get a Twitter account and do I need to have a blog AND a website?”

Listening to her I felt sad. I mean who the heck laid down these requirements that a small business has to have so much in place so fast?

It Wasn’t Always This Way

100 years ago: before there were computers or radio or TV or desktop publishing, the requirements for being ready for business were simple and concrete.

For example, let’s say you’re newly arrived in Denver, CO around 1890. At this time, the American West is still pretty wild and there are thousands of people traveling west who need to supplies and gear for their trek through the mountains

You decide you’re going to open a dry goods store and sell supplies to all these aspiring miners and ranchers.

To have your business up and running you need:

• a physical location for your shop and a place to store supplies
• to build your store
• a source of fresh water
• fuel to keep the place warm when it gets cold out
• a dependable source of goods to sell to customers
• customers

Assuming you had the above along with a strong work ethic, some organization skills, and a grasp of accounting and inventory management, you had a good chance of succeeding.

I’m not saying this was easy. However the steps and the order in which you took the steps was clear cut.

Nowadays

In our brave new world of the Internet and the ability to connect with buyers around the world, it has become possible to start a business with little more than a good idea, a computer, and an Internet connection.

The promise is that anyone can set up everything they need for a successful business in a matter of weeks.

And that’s the problem.

Because on the one hand, it’s true: within a week you could have your

• website
• social network accounts (like Twitter and Facebook)
• Blog
• and online store

set up and ready for business.

And this is what is so horribly overwhelming for small business owners. It seems like you should have all these things set up and if you’re not, you’re somehow doing it wrong.

The Answer: Four Foundational Marketing Elements

This brings us back to the original topic: what marketing tools and structures do you really need in place so that your business grows at a healthy pace?

Here are  four foundational marketing elements that every business needs to have in place:

1. You need a clear definition of who you’re serving and the problem you’re helping them with.

2. You need a way for strangers to find out who you are and how you help. For example, attending networking events, publishing articles, blogging and contributing to discussion forums are all ways to introduce yourself

3. You need a way to stay in touch with people who are interested but not ready to buy. For example, postcard mailings, newsletters, and ezines are all ways to keep in touch.

4. You need at least one offer so that when people are ready to buy, you’ll know what customer problems your offer addresses, what questions to ask to find out if your offer is right for a prospect, and how to answer prospect questions.

Once you have a good definition of who your ideal customer is, you choose one, maybe two at the most activities for each element.

Example: Applying the Four Marketing Elements

Marianne is a nutritionist who, until recently, worked for a large university hospital. She’s now in the process of setting up a private practice with the intention to split her time between seeing private patients and teaching classes.

Here is what Marianne has in place for her marketing:

1. Marianne has defined her ideal client as adults who were recently diagnosed with Type II diabetes and want to find ways to control their blood sugar without using insulin injections.

Marianne specializes in helping her patients plan and carry out diet and exercise programs that make them less insulin dependent.

2. To meet people who might need her help, Marianne, keeps in contact with local doctors who are likely to make the initial diagnosis. She also writes tips and how to articles that she publishes on online article submission sites like Associated Content and Bukisa.

Marianne makes sure that when someone she meets wants to know more, they have the URL to a page on her website so they can subscribe to her newsletter.

3. To keep in touch with people who are interested in what she does but are not yet ready to make an appointment, Marianne writes a bi-monthly newsletter she emails to prospects.  In each newsletter she has a useful tip or how to.

She often uses what she’s written in a newsletter as an submission to article publishing sites.

In this way she gets the most from the articles she writes.

4. Marianne’s practice is relatively new and she has only one offer: individual counseling sessions with patients to help them create and follow diet/exercise plans.

She has one page on her website that covers the main points of her offer and suggest clients either send in a form or call her to set up some time to talk by phone.

Because many of her clients are 65+ Marianne has a printed one-page flyer that has the same information as her website page in case a prospective client is uncomfortable with using the Internet.

To summarize, Marianne has set up the following elements to market her practice:

• a simple website
• a bi-monthly newsletter
• scheduled calls to primary care physicians
• articles (which come mostly from her newsletter) submitted to online publication sites

Marianne does not have a Twitter account or a Facebook page or a shopping cart or a blog. She doesn’t do podcasts or make videos to show on YouTube. She could have these things but right now she doesn’t need to.

Bottom Line

There is a perception among small business owners that they have to set up and implement hundreds of available marketing activities in order to be “doing it right.”

This is because there are so many different technologies that allow business owners to connect with prospective customers, because business owners are always hearing buzz about these technologies, and because the technologies are often free and easy to implement.

The key is to know what you and your business need to connect effectively with perspective customers. Generally you need to set up only one or two activities to get in touch, keep in touch, and sell in order to keep a healthy stream of new customers and revenue coming into your small business.

The most potent marketing strategy for any small business owner is not a great website, or lots of Facebook friends, or a killer networking plan.

The marketing strategy that will get you faster and farther than anything else put together is developing strategic alliances with other businesses so you can promote each others products and services.

Strategic alliances are powerful because:

• you are exposing each other to your networks
• you are endorsing another business’ product or service which enhances or complements your own

And how do you find strategic partners? Well, you decide the qualities of an ideal strategic partner for your business; you begin to identify those businesses; and you get in tough to suggest a partnership.

Problems with Proposing Strategic Alliance

I was inspired to write this week’s article because I’ve received several strategic alliance requests recently that were really, really off-target.

And I thought it might be helpful to share with you what I consider an effective way to propose a strategic alliance with another business.

To illustrate effective and ineffective approaches to strategic alliance proposals I’m going to use those heroes of doctor’s office waiting rooms: Goofus and Gallant.

If you didn’t spend much time in doctor’s waiting rooms during the 60′s and 70′s here’s a quick explanation: Goofus and Gallant was a feature in Highlights: a children’s magazine which offered entertaining and educational information for school-aged kids.

Goofus and Gallant was a comic with two boys–Goofus was a jerk: inconsiderate and selfish. Gallant was, well, gallant: considerate and polite.

Strategic Alliance Proposal: Goofus-Style

When Goofus writes to a prospective strategic ally, his is interested in one thing and one thing only: what he, Goofus, will gain.

It’s all about Goofus.

Things Goofus does when he writes his proposal to make sure there’s no question who the proposal is all about:

• Goofus doesn’t know much about the company he’s sending his proposal except the bare minimal to make contact. He doesn’t look at the company’s website, know what the company’s products and services are, or who the company services.
• Goofus’ proposal is all about his accomplishments and work experiences. He assumes that the recipient will be able to figure out which qualities and accomplishments are relevant and which are not.
• Goofus uses the shotgun approach. He gets as many prospective business contacts as he can and mass mails the same email to every contact. Goofus figures if he emails enough businesses, one or two will want to work with him.
• Goofus sees business as a zero sum game. If someone else gets a customer, it’s a customer Goofus didn’t get. There can be only one winner and Goofus wants to make sure its him.

Now, confession time, I’m guilty of sending Goofus-style proposals. Why? Mostly because I didn’t know how to write something more effective.

Fortunately, I’ve learned how to write a proposal that actually connects with prospective allies.

Read on for the Gallant-style proposal.

Strategic Alliance Proposal Gallant-style

To sum up Gallant’s approach, Gallant assumes that the business owner he’s approaching first needs to be able to trust that Gallant wants a win-win partnership before they’ll take the next step.

Here is what Gallant does to make sure his proposal clearly communicates that he wants everyone to benefit.

• Gallant takes the time to learn about the business he’s approaching. He knows who the key people are in the business, he knows what the business’ products and services are, he’s visited their website and perhaps he’s even read a few articles written by the business owner.
• From checking out the business, Gallant understands the complementary opportunities from a strategic alliance.
• Gallant’s proposal speaks clearly and specifically to how a joint venture will benefit his prospective strategic partner. For example, he can give examples of why his readers will appreciate and respond to an article written by this prospective partner.
• Gallant uses a shotgun approach to identifying and getting in touch with strategic partners. He has thought through what qualities an ideal strategic partner has and knows how to find those partners. This is why he can approach these companies in such a personal way.

Why Companies Don’t Use the Gallant-Style Approach

The biggest objection is “it takes too much time.” And the Gallant-style approach for sure takes longer than the Goofus-style approach.

No argument from me.

But if you look at the time spent from the perspective of which hours produce the best results in terms of attracting profitable strategic partnerships, Gallant-proposals are a lot more effective.

Burning Bridges versus Opening Doors

Plus, a “no” to a Goofus proposal is usually a “no and don’t come back.” Goofus proposals result in slammed doors and burned bridges.

Gallant proposals that don’t result in a “yes” or a “let’s talk more” usually result in a “let’s talk in six months” or “it doesn’t fit what we need but here’s someone who could use what you offer.”

Bottom Line

If you approach other businesses to ask about strategic partnership opportunities and you’re not much response, you may be sending Goofus-style proposals.

Gallant-style proposals require extra time and effort to personalize and speak to specific win-win benefits, but every hour you spend putting effort into a Gallant-style proposal is easily worth the effort of sending 100 Goofus proposals.

Not to mention the doors that open when the company you’re approaching feels truly seen, heard, and appreciated.

Recently, the owner of a consulting practice contacted me. In the email, she said that she needed an easier, more predictable way to find ideal prospects. She had already tried a lot of different things but nothing worked.

So we set up a meeting so I could learn more about her situation and whether I could help.

As we spoke during the meeting, it became clear to me that, yes, I could help this business owner. I felt quite certain of this.

But when it was my turn to tell her what I recommended things bogged down. It was very painful because I was doing my best to communicate “Yes, I can help you,” and the person looking for help kept asking, “But what exactly are you going to do?”

When I was in the middle of this I thought “Please, just tell me how you need me to say what you need to hear so you’ll understand that I can give you what you want.”

I felt like there was some magic word or phrase that if I could just figure out what it was it would be like pressing the “Easy Button,” and we’d come to an agreement and be done with it.

What the REAL Problem Was

Lucky me I had a wise friend with whom I could talk over this situation. After listening for a few minutes, he said, “You know when you start getting that frantic feeling that you’re not in control and you’re grasping at what to do? That’s because you’ve lost connection with your heart’s guidance.”

This annoyed me because I was actually enjoying my grievance airing and I was hoping to complain more about how hard some prospects are to convince.”

But complaining wasn’t going to help me help this potential client.

I asked my friend to tell me a little more about what he meant. What he told me was this:

When our focus is on looking to others to get what we’re needing although it may seem like we’re focusing on the other person, it’s actually about us getting our own needs met.

Now there’s nothing wrong with having needs. I’m human, you’re human, we all need encouragement, reassurance, and feedback. The problem occurs when we look to the people who are coming to us for help to meet those needs.

We’ve all been in a situation in which we felt that the person selling was in it for themselves..it was about their need to make a sale. Whether or not they provided what we, the prospect was needing was almost incidental.

What DOES Work?

So, someone contacts you and they have a problem they’re hoping you can help them with. They’re frustrated, perhaps feeling a little vulnerable about their situation.

And here you are wanting to help but feeling inept because you’re not helping them. What do you do with those feelings of insecurity and uncertainty?

My friend suggested that I bring those feelings into my heart and listen for an answer.

While I was on the phone with a prospective client? Yep, when you’re in the middle of a conversation and you’re stuck for an answer.

I realized that one reason I had become stuck was I had some questions that I had dismissed as not being important but in fact, these were important questions. I needed the answers to make a recommendation.

So I called the client and asked my questions and listened to her answers and when she asked me again, how I could help, I got quiet and listened to what my heart was telling me and when I told her I did from a place of quiet certainty that this was what her practice needed.

It was an entirely different call. I didn’t hang up feeling like a Master of the Sales Universe but I did feel “complete.” That we both knew what the next step was going to be.

Keys to Persuading without Trying

First a small confession: these conversations are not about persuading. When someone calls you about your services, they want you to help them.

If you know you can help them, then your job is to listen with empathy. When the other person feels completely heard and understood, they feel safe enough to say “yes” to the next step.

Key #1 Know when you’re flailing

The first step to doing anything is to be aware that you’re having a problem. It’s not fun but you can’t take the next step to solving a problem unless you can acknowledge “whoa this isn’t working.”

Key #2 Pause.

It may be enough to say, “Give me a moment here.” If you need to you can say, “Hey, something just came up, can I call you back in five minutes.”

I want to acknowledge that disengaging is probably the hardest part because most of us have learned to “bull through” situations like this. But it’s worth learning to pause because it’s what you need to do so you can actually help the person who has come to you.

Key #3 Listen to what your heart is telling you

When I say “heart” I mean heart. My own heart actually does speak to me. And I personally believe that a Divine intelligence speaks through my heart.

Some people say they “listen to their gut” or “their intuition.” An instructor of mine used to say his “big toe” was the source of his inner wisdom.

It doesn’t matter what you call what you listen to. What does matter is that you listen to the voice that is clear, calm, and kind.

Key #4 Follow your heart’s guidance

This can be hard…especially when what you hear feels irrelevant to the problem-solving track you’ve been following.

In the situation I’ve been describing, the guidance I got was, “Ask her what prompted her to call you in the first place.” This didn’t feel like a constructive question to me. I felt our discussion was past that point.

But my friend said, “If you believe your heart is giving you wise guidance why would you reject that guidance.”

So when I called the prospective client back that was the question I asked and her answer was tremendously helpful. I ended up making an entirely different recommendation than I originally intended.

Bottom Line

It’s easy to get hooked into looking to the person we’re trying to influence for the “key” to what we need to say and do.

The problem is instead of giving them a sense of ease and relief about their problem (why they came to us to begin with), we add to their burden making them feel (subtly) responsible for meeting our needs.

The solution is to looking into your own heart for guidance around the next step for moving forward in the business relationship.

When you look to your heart, you take the focus off your own needs and return your attention to being in service to your customers. Which is why we become business owners in the first place.

One of the greatest challenges of doing business in a “knowledge economy” is selling what is intangible.

If you are a coach, a consultant, an alternative health practitioner, or any other business owner who is selling a service,, you know how difficult it is to come up with an effective message that gets across why someone should hire you.

Here’s a typical situation:

I had a client,Susan, who called herself an “Mind Body Therapist.” She had years of training in yoga, Chinese medicine, and homeopathy and had helped many of her clients make remarkable progress.

When I asked this client who her “ideal client” was she replied,

“My ideal client is an executive woman who feels stuck and yearns to fully express her authentic self.”

Now, I’m guessing may be  executive women in the world who wake up in the morning thinking “I feel stuck and I wish I could more fully express my authentic self.”

But I couldn’t think of a single person fitting that description. Well, maybe Oprah.

If you’re a small business providing a service and this is how you talk about your clients, you will struggle to build your business.

Taking a Closer Look at the Real Problem

The dilemma, business owners like Susan face is a challenging one:

When you have a services business, you are usually selling an experience and experiences are very difficult to describe in concrete ways.

Ideally, of course, your marketing speaks to the results your clients and customers get when they work with you. And if you have quantifiable results, fantastic!

But it can take a long time–weeks, even months–for results to appear and results are not a sure thing. For example, can a massage therapist guarantee that her client’s lower back pain will go away after six weeks of treatment?

Of course not!

Why Marketing for Service-based Businesses Tends to Suck

When business owners like Susan need to develop marketing materials but can’t speak directly to results what happens?

Well, they look for other ways to articulate the value they provide. Typically they will:

• Talk about the particular process they use to help customers. The financial planner will tell you about the methodology they use to produce a higher return. The coach will tell you that they use archetypes and the Integrity Coaching Model.
• Explain their certifications and education.
• Provide a long list of features hoping their prospects will somehow be able to figure out why those features are useful
• Talk about results in vague, general terms that sound good but have no real substance for their prospects.

There’s nothing wrong with process and methodology. Often the process or methodologies or systems we use help us differentiate what we do from what our competitors do.

And even though we can’t guarantee results, knowing our process has a positive track record because lots of practitioners have gotten good results, reassures us that our service is valuable.

The problem is that prospects don’t want to hear about your processes or certifications. They just want to know you can help them.

Keys to Marketing Your Services so Prospects Say “Yes!”

#1. Speak to Concrete Ways Problems Show Up in Your Customer’s Everyday Life

Using Susan as an example, her clients don’t show up complaining that their authentic selves aren’t fully expressed. What do they complain about?

• They pulled off a miracle at work and their boss took the credit
• Their husbands don’t help out enough with housework
• They don’t want to spend an upcoming vacation visiting their family but feel guilty doing something different

Are these problems someone would talk about over coffee? Yes. And these are the problems Susan needs to address.

#2 Use Your Customer’s Words

This is where a lot of business owners get in trouble. They talk about the problem from their perspective using their language.

As an expert, you, the business owner have lots of knowledge and experience helping clients. The perspective of an expert who has “seen it all” is completely different from the perspective of the client who is overwhelmed and doesn’t know where to begin.

If you need to, interview a few of your clients and ask them,

“What was going on that you wanted my help with?” and

“What was it like for you struggling in that situation?” and

“What did you try before to fix the problem?”

#3 Use Your Customer’s Words to Explain What it’s Like to Work with You

Rather than try to explain the results in vague, general terms ask your clients for specifics:

“What made you decide to contact us?”

“What was it like for you to work with us?”

“How was working with us different from the other solutions you tried?”

“How has your situation changed?”

#4 Write a Short Success Story

If you’ve asked your customer all the questions in #2 and #3 you have a success story you can use in your marketing that will explain to your audience exactly what they want to know:

Can you help someone like me with this problem?

Here’s how Susan could use a story in her marketing:

I help dedicated executive women who want to be fully recognized for their contributions at work.

Here’s what one client had to say:

When I called Susan I was just about to quit my job as Controller for a small family-owned business. I’d been with this company for five years and when an opportunity for a promotion opened up, I was the best choice.

When I heard the CEO was looking at hiring someone from another company for the position, I was furious and began looking for a new job.

Fortunately, I had a friend who suggested I first talk to Susan. That she might be able to help me make a case to be promoted.

When I called Susan and explained my situation, I felt like she understood exactly what I was going through. She didn’t jump in and give me a lot of advice. She asked me a lot of questions about my work and why I had gone into corporate finance to begin with.

I realized I was doing the work I was doing because I loved the opportunity to see in a very direct way how I was helping a company get to the next level. This was something I had gotten to do with my current employer.

Realizing why I enjoyed my work helped me approach the CEO and explain why the promotion was important. For me to continue working with them, I needed to be in a position that would allow me to play a part in the next major move forward for the company. I wouldn’t be able to do that in my current job.

The CEO was honest with me. He said he had been looking outside the company because he was concerned that I didn’t have the experience he thought was needed. But he said he would hate to lose me.

He offered a compromise in which they would hire a consultant who would mentor me in my promoted position. In this way I would get the support I needed to handle my new responsibilities.”

This concrete statement of how she helps clients followed by a story that explains the experience is so much more effective than vague, jargon-laden phrases.

Bottom Line

Marketing for small service businesses sucks because it’s challenging for owners to explain why their services are so valuable.

To explain the value of what they offer, they focus on the processes they use, their education and certifications, and provide exhaustive features lists. Although this may impress other experts in their fields, it doesn’t help their prospects who just want to get help for their problem.

Instead, use concrete examples in the customer’s own words from the customer’s perspective to explain who you work with and the problems you solve. Add use customer success  stories to help prospects understand why your customers love working with you.

Cross-Promoting without Diluting Your Identity

The idea of collaborating with a large brand to promote your own brand and generate referral revenue seems like a no-lose proposition.

The large brand gets exposure to your niche audience and you earn additional revenue and gain exposure to the big brand’s massive audience.

The problem as I see it is when the identity you worked so hard to establish for your brand is overwhelmed by the identity of the big brand.

An exception is Dwell Magazine’s promotion of Ralph Lauren paint.

The Ralph Lauren brand is on just about every “life style” product for sale these days. You could decorate every room in your home with Ralph Lauren fabrics, paints, and accessories.

Dwell magazine appeals to a small but influential audience that loves modern, sustainable design. I’ve been a Dwell subscriber for years because I have a passion for beautiful, simple product which made from high quality, sustainable materials.

In this video, Dwell founder, Laura Deam, explains how she was inspired by Le Corbusier’s 1931 classic, Polychromie Architecturale to create a cool, muted look using Ralph Lauren paints.

The video is low key and focuses on using color to create a mood. There’s no high pitched sales talk or exhortations to get to your local dealer to buy Ralph Lauren paint. And Dwell readers will appreciate her references to modern design pioneer, Le Corbusier, who was one of the founders of International Style.

The Point

You can promote a big brand to a niche audience by keeping the focus of your promotion on what your audience values and considers relevant. Most Dwell readers probably don’t care much for the Ralph Laurent lifestyle but they do appreciate how Ralph Lauren paint can be used to create an aesthetic they appreciate.

(Note: Actually I was going to title this article, “How to use numbers in marketing without turning into the Robot from Planet X” but that was way too long for an email subject line.)

I typically write a lot more about the “human side of marketing,” because I think topics like trust, sincerity, and emotions get overlooked in most marketing advice discussions.

And no matter how clever your copy and fail safe your system, neglect trust building and you will have to work twice as hard at your marketing for half the results.

But that doesn’t mean you can ignore the numbers side of marketing. In this article I talk about why numbers are important and how to make them work in your marketing.

True Story

Last year I was promoting a new teleclass that I was very excited about. I had done the class as a live workshop twice and participants got great results.

It seemed to me that live success should easily translate into teleclass success, right?

I followed all the guidelines for successful online promotions, wrote a strong message, etc. And didn’t get a single sign up.

Someone suggested that I offer a couple scholarships so that we at least made or minimum enrollment of 8 participants. So I wrote another offer and posted it in a small business discussion forum in which I was well known and trusted by members.

Three days went by, then a week, and still, no one was signing up even to take the class for free!!!

Boy did that knock me off my center.

Lucky for me, I felt safe enough in this forum to post a second message telling folks that I was baffled and disappointed no one had taken advantage of my free offer.

Even luckier for me, other forum members responded with honesty and empathy. Of the ten people who responded:

• 2 said they were really excited about the class but they had other commitments on the class dates.
• 3 said they were focused on other parts of their business and weren’t ready to learn the subject I was teaching but to let them know if I gave it later in the year.
• 1 said they were on vacation when I posted the offer
• 1 said they didn’t feel they needed to take my class because they had already mastered the subject matter but they thought the class sounded great for those new to the topic.

The other three people didn’t mention the class specifically but said they appreciated my willingness to ask for help and encouraged me not to give up.

Here’s what I took away from the experience:

In marketing, especially in online marketing in which there’s not much opportunity to establish trust, you must put your message in front of a lot of people and repeat your message over and over again over a period of time.

Understanding the Odds

For your marketing to work (for an audience member to act on your offer’s Call to Action) all of these things need to happen. Your prospect:

• Actually needs what you’re offering
• Is aware that they need what you offer
• Trusts you and believes you’ll deliver what you promise
• Actually reads or listens to your message when it goes out
• has the time and money to take you up on your offer

The odds I use are 10 out of 100 in the case of responses to online marketing.

In other words, for every 1,000 emails you send to readers who have opted in to your e-mail list:

• 100 will act on your call to action (click through to your sales page)
• 10 will actually make a purchase

These odds are guidelines. Factors that affect your response rate include:

• Familiarity with your offer. The more often someone sees your offer, the more likely they’ll take the next step assuming they want and need what you offer
• Marketing message that is personalized to the problem and your prospect experiences the problem
• How well-defined your niche is and the likelihood that everyone receiving your message has the problem you’re addressing
• Your message avoids words and phrases that trigger spam filters, etc.

How These Numbers Apply to Your Marketing

If you’re a small business owner and use online marketing, here are the main points to take away:

Take Away Point #1 You Need a Large Email List

When someone tells me they’re disappointed with the low number of response they received from a promotion. The first question I ask them is, “How big is your list?”

And

How large is “large”? At least 500 subscribers, preferably 1,000.

It’s perfectly ok if you have a smaller list but you will need to supplement your online marketing with activities that are more personal: local networking, free presentations, etc.

Take Away Point #2 Repeated Offers Over Time are a Must

People don’t see every email you send

• They’re out of the office
• They’re reading their email on their phone and only look at the most urgent ones
• They accidentally delete your email

etc.

And even if they open your email they may not pay much attention because

• Your event is six weeks away and they just can’t think that far into the future
• They aren’t ready yet to take a class on the subject matter because other priorities take precedence

Which is why it’s so important to repeat your offers to your prospects over a period of time; such as six to eight weeks.

Because eventually, the people who want to enroll in your class or buy your DVD or hire you as a coach will actually see your offer, read it, and take action.

Take Away Point #3 Relevance is Important

The main resistance to point #2 is “if I send too many emails, everyone will unsubscribe.”

Which is why there’s point #3; they won’t subscribe if the offer is relevant to something they need now or are likely to need soon.

You can email an offer for discounted tire inspections to your heart’s content but there won’t be many takers if most of the people to whom you’re promoting don’t own cars.

Take Away Point #4 Don’t Forget Those Annoying but Important Details

Once I sent out an offer and had no idea why people weren’t registering until someone emailed me saying “uh, I think the link is broken.”

Sure enough, I hadn’t tested the link people were supposed to click to view the sales page on my website.

Doh!

So, don’t assume everything works. Make sure the links in your message take people where you want them to go, check to make sure your message isn’t peppered with words that will send your email right into spam oblivion, use the right dates and times, and check for typos.

Every one of those annoying little things can ruin an otherwise well done promotion and make it look like no one is interested.

Bottom Line

Numbers in marketing are every bit as important as your sincere intentions to serve. In particular:

• Remember you will lose about 9 out of every 10 prospects for each step they must take in the process to becoming customers.
• The more you depend on online marketing the more important it is to have a large list of subscribers.
• There are specific actions you can take to improve the odds so that you lose fewer people along the way such as repeating your offers, making sure your offers are relevant to prospects, and testing for technical problems.

Not too long ago, I received an email from a business owner who was very unhappy about expensive marketing that wasn’t producing results.

Her email went something like this:

“I’m a distributor for an exclusive skincare line and sell my products directly to customers. I recently paid several hundred dollars to place a small ad in an alternative weekly paper.

I’m so frustrated because the advertisement didn’t result in a single call! Not one. I don’t have much of a marketing budget so when I spend money it needs to work.

Am I doing something wrong? What do you suggest?”

When I asked the skincare distributor what she put in her ad, she said it was a short message about a recently introduced electronic device that helps aging skin look younger.

She was excited because her company said the product produces results faster than creams. And she assumed people reading the ad would be excited too.

So what went wrong?

It’s All About Context

The best message in the world will fail if prospects read it out of context.

If prospects see your message at a time when they aren’t concerned with the problem your product solves, they will ignore it. Your message might as well be invisible.

Context is about making sure prospects see your message at the “moment of truth”: the time when they are most aware of their problem and looking for solutions.

Chances are the advertisement the skincare specialist didn’t get seen by prospective customers at a time when they were worried and preoccupied by wrinkles and crows feet.

This means for your marketing to succeed, you need to know what your prospects are doing when the moment of truth occurs. Then you can make sure it’s when they see your marketing.

Figuring Out “The Moment of Truth” for Your Customers

If your customers have a well-articulated process when it comes to making purchase decisions, the moment of truth for your customers is when they’re accepting proposals or when they’re creating a prospective vendor list.

This is typical for medium and large-sized companies.

If this is the case for you, it comes down to finding out when your prospects are going to be looking for vendors and making sure your marketing gets in front of them at that time.

Not so typical if you’re selling to small business owners or consumers.

Let’s take the example of the skincare distributor. Do people go through a step by step process when looking for help with their skin? Not usually.

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to take an educated guess for when those “moments of truth” may be occurring: Life transitions.

Using Life Transitions to Identify Likely Moments of Truth

Life transitions such as marriage, babies, buying a new home, divorce, and death are times when people go through huge changes physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

When these changes occur, wants and needs change too.

For example, the skincare consultant’s ideal customers are professional women 40+. What types of life transitions would create a “moment of truth” when these women would be especially sensitive to signs of aging?

• Weddings: being the mother of the bride or groom or just a key member of the wedding party
• High school or college reunions
• Divorce and having to think about dating again
• Special presentation in which they’re giving a keynote speech or accepting an honor

I bet you can think of others.

You can also include significant business and career transitions when looking for moments of truth. For example:

• Promotions
• Starting a new business
• Changing careers
• New job
• Media attention
• etc.

Getting the Word Out

Once you’ve identified likely life and work transitions that cause relevant moments of truth for your customers, the next step is to think about likely activities where they might be exposed to your marketing.

For example, let’s say the skin care consultant decides that she wants to work women who are going to be part of the wedding party (mother of the bride and groom, bridesmaids, maybe even the bride. How would she go about getting the word out?

I’d suggest she begin by brainstorming all the activities:

• Picking out dresses, shoes, and accessories
• Hiring a planner
• Buying books and magazines on planning a wedding
• Shopping for and buying invitations
• Attending wedding shows
• Hiring a hair dresser and make up artist
• Working out in aerobics classes, possibly with a personal trainer

Looking at this list of activities suggest a number of ways our skin care consultant might market to her ideal customers:

• Giving her business card to businesses that work with wedding parties: retailers who specialize in special bridal and special occasion dresses, wedding planners, stationary stores, salons, spas, and fitness centers.
• Attending perhaps even buying a booth at a wedding show (or sharing a booth with someone offering complementary services like a photographer)
• Asking complementary businesses such image consultants, make up artists, hair dresses, etc to trade referrals and website links
• Doing facials and presentations at specialty retailers, fitness centers, even bookstores.

Bottom Line

Even the most persuasive marketing message is useless if your ideal customers don’t see it at the point when they are actively looking for solutions.

To make sure your prospects pay attention to your marketing:

• Know how and when large/medium-size organizations identify vendors for upcoming projects
• Know which life transition points are likely to make your small business/consumer prospects aware of problems and to seek solutions for those problems
• Brainstorm specific activities ideal customers engage in to solve their problem
• Use marketing that naturally fits into those activities

Do you have a success story about using marketing creatively during your customer’s “moment of truth?” Please share by commenting!

You need to set objectives before you can tell whether Twitter is actually helping your marketing. More here:

MarketingProfs Articles : Better Than a Magic 8 Ball.

What prompted this article was a client who was unhappy with me. I had given them some feedback and it hit a nerve and they told me.

There’s a time when I would have simply responded with a very logical email explaining why I was right and suck it up and follow my instructions.

And I was wishing my clients would just be easier to work with and do what I tell them to do.

As I thought about how I could best respond, a line from Charles Dickens’ book, A Christmas Carol popped in my mind: Mankind is Our Business.

Mankind is Our Business

There’s a scene early in the book when Ebenezer Scrooge is confronted by the ghost of his recently deceased business partner, Jacob Marley.

Marley has come to warn Scrooge that unless Scrooge changes his ways; shifts his focus from making as much profit as possible to spending his wealth to help others, he’s doomed to an afterlife in chains and remorse.

Scrooge is terrified by Marley’s presence and tries to calm Marley and himself saying,

“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob”

To which Marley replies, “Business… Mankind was my business … The dealings of my trade were but a water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

Coming Back to the Present

OK, so let me bring you back to how all this relates to my client situation.

I wasn’t very happy that my client didn’t like my advice and was telling me they weren’t going to do what I suggested.

It was frustrating for me and scary because this client was a referral from someone whose esteem I valued. It things didn’t work out I might lose not only a client but the trust of my referral source.

I sat and considered different ways to respond to my client’s email. In the past I would have sent a very professional and business like email explaining why I was right and the consequences of not following my advice.

And that approach might work but it wouldn’t work very well. What’s interesting is that my client wasn’t wanting my instructions and how tos even though it looked that way.

Because my client’s compliance would have come at the expense of trust. And trust is what makes us coaches and consultants able to help clients make real, sustainable advancements.

Sustainable advancement is how mankind is my business.

How I Handled the Situation

I emailed back to my client saying I got that they were feeling frustrated with my suggestions and rather than continue to hack away at creating a marketing message, let’s talk by phone about what they were wanting from me and how I could support them.

Is Mankind Your Business?

In most of my articles I offer some really specific steps you can apply in your own business.

In this article, the only step is to consider these two questions:

Is mankind your business? and

why did you answer the way you did?

And if you feel like sharing your response with me, I’d really love to hear what you have to say.

Bottom Line

Saying that “Mankind is Our Business” sure sounds good what what exactly does that mean to you and I in our small businesses?

If you accept it as true for your own business, it means in addition to doing our trade: helping customers solve problems and get the results they want, we are in the business of helping our customers make lasting changes so they can see more good in the world and do more good in the world.