Instant Income – Income Building Plan For Small Business

Recapture Momentum In Your Business

If Your Business Lost Customers and Revenue During 2008, 2009, and 2010, Here’s How to Recapture That Momentum — and Build for the Future.

STEP #1: ASK PAST CUSTOMERS TO BEGIN DOING BUSINESS WITH YOU AGAIN

If you have yet to make an effort to reactivate past customers — or if you haven’t yet looked at your customer list to see how many inactive customers or clients you have, you may be sitting on a gold mine of instant income.

Often times, past customers have no idea why they stopped purchasing from you or stopped using your services. All they need is a reminder of why they enjoyed buying from you…and a special incentive to begin doing so again.

If you’re a retail location, why not contact customers with a special item you don’t normally carry but that they might be interested in? For service businesses, you could contact past customers by phone and suggest they come back to finish their services (if they didn’t already) or that they may need your service again after going for so long without it. If you’re a doctor, why not offer a mini-physical or other type of test your patients should be doing every year but aren’t. Explain to them in simple language the benefits of staying on top of their health and the downside of not doing so. You can even contract with an outside service to bring in specialized equipment to perform tests over a two-week period–then invite past patients to come in for evaluation.

What Else Works Well for Reactivating Past Customers?

More »

Turn Customer Service Into Instant Income

This is the definition of great customer service: Constantly thinking of the customer’s needs.

In fact, you’ll find that if you pay enough attention to their needs, customers won’t leave you even if you (or they) move several hundred miles away.

How can you turn great customer service into instant income?

The easiest way is to watch a customer’s usage or purchasing pattern, then call to take their re-order before they run out of supplies and purchase from someone else out of convenience.

For example, I once heard of a veterinarian who calls pet owners just before their medications run out. Or what about the postcard and discount offer I receive from my car dealer just when I need to have my oil changed?

Assigning customers to a regular customer service person is another good way to create repeat business.

Dedicated customer service representatives can learn all about the customer, discover their business or personal  needs and greet them warmly when they call.

Not surprisingly, these reps make the best telemarketers for your special offers because the customer is more comfortable hearing from someone they know and trust.

If your customer service department is experiencing a slow period in this economy, it’s a great time to put them to work calling customers with new offers.

Help them change their posture today — from reactive to proactive.

Snail Mail Is Popular Again?

With Mailing Volume Down Substantially, Snail Mail Is Actually Effective Again

The other day, I received a letter in my home mailbox promoting a heating and air conditioner package. It’s the same letter I’ve received several times a year for the past 5-6 years, but what was different about it this time was how well it stood out amongst the lack of other pieces in my mailbox.

With the drop in the economy, a corresponding drop in companies spending money on postage, and the rise of email marketing and Internet advertising, good old fashioned mailing pieces are becoming more noticed today — and thus, more effective.

Of course, snail mail has always been an ideal format for selling expensive products and services to targeted customers in upscale neighborhoods. But it’s also ideal for converting prospects on your list into buyers.

But here’s the key: Plain and simple wins the day.

It needn’t be any more elaborate than a typed letter of 2-4 pages in a simple white envelope — with your return address in the corner and the prospect’s name and address typed as if you’d sat down and written them a personal letter.

Remember the hallmark of any good marketing campaign: Be of service to the prospective customer. Address their needs. Tell them how they can improve their lives. Give them information they need to know that they might not have already. Don’t just talk about yourself, your product and your company. Ultimately, you want to approach your direct-mail campaign with the mindset, “I’m selling the solution to a problem the prospect has or I’m selling the means to achieving something the prospect wants to accomplish.”

Determining what your idea prospect wants will help you formulate the actual sales letter, announcement or other printed elements of the direct-mail package.

How can you solve the problems above or improve their lives or deliver the accomplishment they desire? Researching first what the market wants—their “hot buttons,” pain, ambitions and needs—is the key to a successful direct-mail campaign. Keeping these details in mind will help you craft the message of your direct-mail package or sales letter.

When you do eventually produce your direct-mail piece, always write your main sales letter using direct-response copy. Direct-response copy compels recipients to respond immediately to your offer. It gets them excited about the possibilities in their lives from the product or service you are offering. It tells them specifically what to do to make a purchase or to take the next step.

(For a complete tutorial on writing your sales letter or direct-mail package, see the Advertising and Copywriting Course included in the Business Enhancement System here. You’ll discover detailed information on the 16 components of a direct response-style sales letter.)

Have you seen my latest report? Click here to get “How to Create Immediate Cash-Flow From 10 Easy New-Business Development Strategies.”

photo credit: markdvk

What to Do If You’re Hesitant to Pick Up the Phone and Make Deals

Let’s face it. There are some people who just love to talk on the phone. They love to get into new relationships with other businesses who can help send customers and revenues your way. It’s almost like a game to them — with their commission keeping score.

If you’ve been hesitant to pick up the phone and make joint-venture deals, start new endorsement relationships or ask people to sell your products and services for you, you need a Joint-Venture and Affiliate Manager.

We call joint-venture partners on the Internet “affiliates.” And since so much marketing is done on the Internet today, the job of recruiting affiliates, managing those relationships and supplying affiliates with tools they can use to promote your products and services at their website falls to an Affiliate Manager.

The top Affiliate Managers on the Internet today are women. I don’t know if that holds true for every company, but I can tell you that women are typically superb at relationship-building, follow-up and just plain calling to check in. These are the hallmarks of a good Affiliate Manager. In fact, ultimately, you’ll want them to be on a first-name basis with the top 5% to 20% of your affiliates—since those are the ones who will likely produce 95% of your affiliate-generated business.

Joint-venture relationships for conducting offline promotions are no different.

Other attributes of a good Joint-Venture and Affiliate Manager include constantly following up with email list owners — including those who say No, Not now, Maybe in six months, Not the appropriate offer, Price point too high for my list, Need a different product — or worse — no response at all. Good managers are not daunted by rejection, nor do they take anything personally. They understand that building a successful joint-venture and affiliate program is really just a numbers game. The more potential affiliates and endorsers they contact and the more professional-looking, top-notch marketing campaigns your company runs online — the more quality partners you’ll recruit.

Of course, recruiting them is only half of the formula. Your manager also has to continually encourage affiliates to run your promotions to their list — and your company needs to constantly produce fresh new emails, banner ads, text links, free reports, direct-mail pieces, teleseminars and other tools they need in order to do so. Affiliates will rarely write their own copy to promote your product — or even think through how your promotion will appeal to their list. They rarely advise on bonuses-with-purchase, price points, discounts and other details. All those details are your manager’s job. More »

Getting Someone Else to Take Over the Marketing of Your Products and Services

If you spend all day just running your business, manufacturing your product or delivering a service to your customers, you may not have a lot of extra time leftover for conducting marketing. That’s when it makes sense to hire someone who can do the marketing and bring in the cash. (In fact, today, you can often hire these people on a part-time, percentage-of-revenue or project-by-project basis.)

What do you need to know before bringing on a smart marketer?

For one thing, all marketing promotions are implemented either online or offline.

What are offline promotions? Anything that takes place outside the Internet. For instance:

• Trade shows
• Radio and TV commercials
• Direct mail / card decks / Val-Pak mailers
• Catalog placement
• Preview workshops
• Statement stuffers
• Press releases
• In-store and lobby promotions
• Display advertising
• Billboards, literature racks, charity programs
• Teleseminars and webinars and other non-traditional marketing outlets

When building your optimum cash-generation team, it’s best to think ahead toward splitting your marketing management between online promotions (Internet marketing) and offline promotions. The main reason for this is that online marketing is getting more and more specialized by the day. With new kinds of technologies and opportunities being developed all the time, it’s difficult for one manager to maintain up-to-the-minute knowledge about the Internet — particularly if you have lots of marketing programming to manage which doesn’t leave extra time for training.

For most small businesses, you’ll want someone who is comfortable developing a promotional plan, then initiating all promotions — without you telling them what to do every step of the way. In fact, you’ll ideally want someone who knows more about marketing than you do.

Why?

Because the truth is most small business owners go into business to pursue something they love to do. But while they may be superb at doing what they love to do, too often they just are not great marketers. If this describes you, then you need an initiator who will take charge of your marketing promotions and execute them with assurance.

(If your marketing manager could use the Instant Income 101 Ways to Create Income,  filled with tools that are focused solely on boosting cash-flow in your business, click here. )

photo credit: bjmccray

Five Ways to Bring In Leads that Convert Into Customers

A few days ago, I talked about finding and hiring sales superstars — who are more available than ever in this downsized job market. What’s the best way to convince a top closer to work for you on straight commission? Create a steady stream of prospective new customers (or “leads”) that can be easily converted into sales.

But how can you get more people to look at your business in this economy — and be eager to talk with your salespeople?

Use direct-response advertising techniques to draw pre-sold leads who respond in greater numbers — and who respond more quickly after reading your advertising.

“Editorial-style” direct-response advertisements have been proven again and again to produce the best response—particularly in generating leads from prospecting campaigns. Using a specific writing formula and 16 specific components such as headlines, bullets, the offer, the signature block, the postscript and more, these ads tell the story, provide compelling information, and end with a “call to action” (or CTA) for the reader to identify themselves to you in some way—either by telephoning you, visiting your store, opting-in at your website or via some other response method. (You can hear a complete tutorial on crafting these direct-response style advertisements in the Advertising & Copywriting Course included with the Instant Income Business Enhancement System found here.)

Perhaps the most unique feature of these direct-response style advertisements is their focus on the reader—rather than on a list of reasons why your business is so wonderful. What will your product do for the reader? How will it help them? How will their lifestyle, relationships, business, personal finances, career, free time, health, abilities, skills or other personal attributes improve once they are using your product or service? What has it done for other people? What is the superior customer benefit of doing business with you versus the competition—once the prospect has decided to buy this particular product or service? What are the further benefits of doing business with you? These are all benefits that you should be writing about in your advertising copy.

Message + Offer + Call-to-Action = The Perfect Prospecting Ad

Think of your advertisement as a sales pitch in print—a way for readers to learn about your product or service, discover how they can personally benefit from doing business with you, and respond with their interest (either by purchasing or by asking for more information). In fact, the most important component of a direct-response ad is the Call-to-Action or CTA—that part of the ad copy that asks readers to respond in a specific way.

What kind of “ads” and other prospecting activity can you use direct-response techniques with?

• Display advertising — another term for the full-page, half-page and fractional page ads you see in newspapers, magazines and directories.

• Preview workshops — where you can pitch local consumers or prospective clients on a product or service package, once your direct-response style ad or email campaign has convinced them to eagerly and listen to what you have to say.

• Direct mail — those letters, packages, postcards and other devices sent through the postal system. One of the most effective marketing strategies for generating both leads and buyers when a direct-response style offer is included. For more details on direct-response offers, advertising, direct mail and more, see my latest report “How to Create Immediate Cash-Flow From 10 Easy New-Business Development Strategies” here.

• Marketing-oriented teleseminars — an ideal method for explaining complicated or expensive services. Use proven strategies to invite hundreds of potential customers on the telephone conference call, then have them call in to your salespeople standing by to close post-call sales.

• Referrals – Customers, prospects, vendors and others — if properly asked — could refer their friends, family, and business associates as ideal prospects to buy your products and services. You can make this appeal in emails, via direct-mail, on the phone, as a small article in your newsletter, via postcard, in person — in fact, using virtually any delivery method you now use for your other marketing messages.

I’ll be back in the next blog post, with my continuing series on the staff who are directly responsible for bringing cash into your business.

To make sure you don’t miss any of my latest reports or informative blog posts, subscribe now to my RSS feed by clicking here.

photo credit: ralphpaglia

This Economy Has Made Sales Superstars Available Again

It used to be that the best salespeople earned a base salary and other perks before any sales were made. Today, however, downsizing, business closures, layoffs and job redundancies have made some surprisingly good sales professionals available to small businesses who have a source of prospective new customers who need to be converted into paying customers.

If you’d like to get more customers, but lately have been doing the entire sales job yourself — it’s time to consider bringing on a commissioned salesperson to take on this role. You’ll discover that sales superstars are easier to find than ever.

What are sales superstars?

Those top 5% of sales professionals who generate about 70% to 90% of all sales. In order to grow your business and meet your financial goals, you want these superstars working for you. And in order to successfully hire them, you must prove that your business makes it easy and profitable to makes sales.

There are two ways to acquire sales superstars for your company; (1) Hire a sales professional, then train them on the benefits of your products and services, or (2) Hire someone familiar with your products and services and train them to do sales. Either method works well. In fact, sometimes the best salespeople are folks who have never considered a career in sales, but are so enthusiastic about your product or service, they continually “sell” for you without being in a sales position with your company. Perhaps they have a natural gift of gab, are natural-born communicators who like to educate others on the benefits of your product or service—or maybe they simply have the ability to listen to the customer’s needs and instantly give a response that shows how your product or service can meet that need. That’s natural sales ability that can be developed with the help of a few tools, scripts, and closing techniques.

To find sales superstars, you can advertise on the major jobseeker websites—in fact, these online job sites are ideal if your sales are done by telephone only. That means your sales superstars can live and work anywhere, rather than reporting to your office or geographic territory everyday for local in-person sales calls. This lets you draw from a much larger talent pool.

MY NEXT BLOG POST: Five Ways to Bring In Leads for Your Salespeople to Convert Into Customers…

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photo credit: aloha orangeneko

Are New Business Start-Ups the Only Path to Significant Economic Recovery?

We’re led to believe that new businesses — especially during the first five years when they typically add the most new employees — are likely the only hope we have for significant job growth and economic recovery worldwide.

But is this really true?

Since virtually all small businesses have cut employee ranks to the bare minimum in this economy, can’t established businesses also contribute to new jobs — if they hire in a way that makes sense for the business?

In my latest home-study course, the Instant Income Business Enhancement System, I detailed the 8 different jobs that contribute directly to bringing the cash.

Over the next several days, I’d like to share with you just some of those positions and help you with some hiring decisions that make sense.

Take today’s topic for example:

FINDING A NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Every business owner wishes they could clone themselves, so they could simultaneously focus on bringing in new business, developing new products and services, and finding new ways to streamline and more effectively run the company. No one person can do all these things. But you can hire professionals to act in your stead. And your most important “stand-in” professional will be your New Business Development Manager.

A new business development manager will initiate — then manage — relationships with outside parties who can drive buyers to you or otherwise help your revenues grow. They can find new markets, source new product lines or recommend new service offerings, do market research, represent you in the field, recruit bigger joint-venture partners than you would be comfortable pursuing, create important strategic alliances and so on. They are not salespeople per se, but rather, they develop entirely new revenue streams for the business.

What could your new business development manager do for you? Could they:

• Pursue joint-venture inquiries you don’t have time to pursue?
• Find outside products and services to sell to your existing customers?
• Develop unusual new outlets for your products and services?
• Get your database and website in proper working order, then design a complete CRM (Customer Relationship Management) plan?
• Build an Internet affiliate recruitment program, then develop tools affiliates can use to sell your products and services?
• Find new uses or new markets for your existing product lines?
• Develop media opportunities for you such as syndicated columns, speaking at trade conferences, or radio and television appearances?
• Research, coordinate and outsource your sales, fulfillment or customer service functions — or part of them?
• Find non-traditional salespeople outside your company?

You can start looking right in your own sales department for someone to fill the most important job in your company (next to your own). Because often times, the best new-business development managers are competent salespeople you promote into the New Business Development Manager position. In fact, this is an easy promotion to make since your salesperson is already familiar with you, your company, your products and services, your promotional capabilities, what’s missing from your marketing and advertising competencies, where you would like to grow, and other details.

You can also seek out consultants who might consider working for you doing new-business development on a part-time basis—until you secure enough frequent and exciting deals to keep them occupied full time.

To find new business development professionals who might consider working on your business, you can also visit websites with job seeker postings like www.marketingsherpa.com, www.directresponsejobs.com and www.sixfigurejobs.com. Be sure any job seekers you decide to contact have the ability to switch to a small-business mentality and develop an eye for economy.

Many candidates on these sites come from management positions in Fortune 1000 companies with huge budgets, large staffs and even larger customer databases. They may not be able to do the job they’re hired to do at your company without those luxuries in place. Ask about this specifically during your interview with them, and keep looking until you find the right person.

(If you’d like to read more about how to find a new-business development manager — including sample advertisements, interview questionnaires, negotiating checklists and compensation models, check out the Instant Income Business Enhancement System here.)

photo credit: NotoriousJEN

How to Craft Offers That Bring In the Cash

Typically in any ad, sales letter, webpage or other marketing device, you’ll want to talk about the features and benefits of your product or service first — before detailing the offer. (Remember that the offer includes elements like the price, purchase terms, any discounts, cut-off date to purchase and so on.)

If you’re writing a longer direct-response style letter or webpage, before detailing the actual offer, list what’s included in the product or service package you’re selling, the benefits a customer would receive, the new lifestyle they’ll enjoy once they own the product or service, testimonials and case studies, and any other compelling information.

All copy that sells the reader on the package being offered — before you ever mention the price.

This proven formula — of discussing all the benefits before discussing the price — is a formula that could literally transform the response rates you’ve experienced in your marketing efforts so far.

By the time you finally discuss the price — that is, the actual offer — you have two things in your favor:

(1) a committed, qualified reader who is interested enough to have read this far into your sales letter or ad, and;

(2) a potential buyer who is virtually pre-sold to the point where price almost becomes no object. In fact, if you’ve done your job of presenting your product or service in such a way that the reader simply must have it, price will NEVER be a deciding factor. If the reader wants it bad enough, they’ll find the money to purchase.

Start writing the offer by restating briefly what the buyer will get when they purchase and what their results might be if they buy. Then — and only then — mention the price of your product or service. When you structure your offer this way — and after reading about everything they’re going to get and the major changes that will happen in their life as a result of buying from you, the prospective buyer’s natural reaction should be, “Wow, I’d pay anything for that.”

Are you enjoying this continuing series of proven Instant Income methods? Watch for my next email and blog post — arriving in your inbox soon.

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Then, tell me about your idea for an offer: Do you have questions about what offers to make in your ads, sales letters and webpages? Want to ask about developing a compelling price or product bundle?

Leave a reply below and let me know.

Small Business Loan Defaults Threaten Massive New Wave of Unemployment

I thought I’d share my latest press release with you, as small business is really hurting as small business lending dries up… now is the time to take action.

(PRWEB) July 30, 2009 — First it was Wall Street. Now it’s Main Street that’s being buffeted by the economic crisis. But while Wall Street was bailed out with Federal stimulus money, there is no stimulus plan yet for the small business sector, which traditionally employs 95% of the American workforce. Countless small businesses are defaulting on bank loans, seeing their credit lines cancelled, closing their doors and laying off employees.

And that failure rate is skyrocketing threatening the economic recovery.

“The problem is really two-fold,” says Janet Switzer. “Current loan customers are failing to make their payments to local banks–which means banks not only have less money to lend to other small businesses, they’re forced to modify the credit lines they’ve written already. Add lower consumer spending to the mix, and small businesses just can’t get enough cash to keep their doors open.”

Only two choices face most small businesses now, says Switzer. “You can cut costs and reduce the business to a shell of its former self–or you can re-focus your entire company on creating cash that will replace falling sales and begin a new growth pattern. Too often, businesses fall into a routine where the majority of the focus in on maintaining the business–not on growing it.”

When slow times come, this “maintenance mindset” is not only hard to shake, it actually hastens the decline of the business as it prevents the owner from changing with the times.

“Fortunately,” says Switzer, “there are steps you can take.” Switzer’s upcoming Instant Income Program  helps small businesses create cash now, but also establish cash-producing systems in their business to prevent the need for stop-gap, emergency measures in the future. But before that program is available in late August, Switzer is making available her free Instant Income 10-Day Turnaround Program to help small businesses create emergency cash.

What are steps a business can take to create cash now?

1. Generate new customers through direct-response advertising techniques and other prospecting strategies that cause an immediate response from consumers. Make specific offers in your ads for appealing product or service packages.

2. Create a three-page Internet selling system that compels visitors to opt-in for a free download, then sells them on an entry-level product or service.

3. Get your sales force focused on following-up on leads–downselling prospects into less expensive packages if necessary. If you’re a solo entrepreneur, use voice broadcasting and email to follow up yourself.

4. Start monitoring your business’s key profitability indicators. If something’s not profitable, stop doing it. If something is very profitable, expand it.

5. Assign new-business development to a single staff person whose job it is to recruit referral sources, develop more distributors and dealers, find non-traditional sales opportunities and pursue other expansion strategies. In addition to the free Instant Income 10-Day Turnaround Program, her free Instant Income Planner describes 10 immediate expansion strategies small businesses can implement now.

6. Start using smart media strategies to garner free publicity in your local market. Determine what’s newsworthy about your business, tie your product or service to current news story or trend–then work with local editors to get an article in your local paper. Use Internet distribution of articles to drive sales by phone for unique product bundles.

7. Re-configure staff positions to create an offline promotions manager, Internet promotions manager, affiliate manager, and other jobs that can initiate cash-flow producing activity. Or use pay-for-performance hiring strategies to bring on cash-producing professionals for the first time.

Scarcity and the “Take Away” Close

In this continuing short-course about crafting compelling offers that generate Instant Income for a small business, two techniques we use on the sales floor that translate very well into written product and service offers are scarcity and the take-away close. 

Scarcity — or a limited supply — works well in crafting offers because it entices the reader to call immediately to purchase one of the few available units or book one of the few available appointments. This boosts your response rate, but also creates a more immediate response meaning more instant income in your bank account.

The take-away close is very similar.  After writing page after page selling the reader on your product or service — to the point where they’re sold but they just need to know the price — you actually take-away the opportunity and hint that they may not actually be able to purchase.  And what do people want when they think they can’t have something? They want it even more.  This technique tends to reduce price objections when you do finally discuss the price in your written offer.

One way to use the “take away” close is by stating that the reader must qualify to purchase.  Of course, in your promotion, you may not actually want prospects to fill out an application (which requires costly staff time to review), so instead you might have them call your sales department for an “assessment”… or you might have them submit specific documentation along with their purchase… and so on.  You can also ask the reader to pre-qualify themselves, using language in your written offer such as: “To qualify as a select client…”

What kind of scarcity or “take away” close could you use?  Think through the products and services you sell right now, then jot down some notes.  To help others learn, to, why not post your scarcity or “take away” offer on my blog?

Tell me by leaving a reply below.

Until next time,

Janet Switzer

P.S.  Are you enjoying this continuing series of proven Instant Income methods?  Sign up for my RSS feed , then watch for my next email and blog post — arriving in your inbox soon.

How To Make Offers That Compel Prospects to Buy

Direct-response copywriters have known for decades that one way to boost cash-flow immediately in your business is to write compelling copy — in your ads, sales letters and webpages — that causes the reader to make a purchase. But if you don’t have this specialized copywriting experience, you can still execute the Instant Income strategies and bring in the cash by remembering this key principle: Make specific product and service offers in your ads and marketing copy.

So many businesses say things like, “We have quality products,” or “We have low prices.” But instead of sounding like every other business in town, why not make an specific offer instead that has a sense of urgency about it and gets people to pick up the phone and call you to purchase?

If you have an air-conditioning service company for example, you could say, “For the next 14 days, we’ll install a brand new top-of-the-line heating and air conditioning unit for just $3,285 including a 5-year-written warranty and free replacement filters for as long as you own your home.” That’s a lot different from just, “We have low prices.”

Making specific offers like this is one of the easiest Instant Income strategies to execute because it’s just a matter of changing the way you advertise your products in print or tell people about your company when they call on the phone.

To help you formulate specific offers, take time now to jot down your most popular product or service packages, your most popular pricing plans, and any discounts that customers respond enthusiastically to. These elements — that is, the product or service being sold, the price, the buying terms, any discounts, the limited supply, cut-off date for purchasing and so on — are all part of any compelling offer.

Jot down what’s worked for you in the past — you can post your best examples on my blog to help your fellow small business owners formulate ideas of their own.

And if you still need help with offers that work, stay tuned for my next post when I’ll list the top 5 most proven types of offers.

Until next time,

Janet Switzer

Two-Step Marketing

Two-step marketing is a prospecting system where you break the sales process into two or more parts. It’s often the best system to use when the prospect needs to be educated before they will purchase, when you sell expensive or high risk products (investing, advertising, cosmetic surgery), or when it’s important for them to try out your product or service before buying.

Here’s how it works:

In Step One, you use advertising vehicles — such as newspaper advertisements, radio spots, direct mail, press releases, contextual search on the Internet — to offer free information, sample items, a demonstration, a special report, an audio CD preview and so on to encourage prospects to identify themselves to you.

In Step Two, the informational item you promised does the job of converting the prospect into a buyer — or your salespeople follow-up with prospects once they’ve received or experienced the free item or service, then close the sale by telephone.

Just a few examples of two-step prospecting are:

• Expensive resort timeshares that offer you free vacations
• Ads that offer a free information kit when you call a toll-free phone number
• A martial arts studio that offers a free lesson or a health club that offers a free trial week

Why does two-step prospecting work?

First, your sales team wont be prospecting for cold leads, but rather will be focusing on well educated and well qualified prospects. Secondly, a compelling special report, audio CD, or DVD preview can be sent inexpensively to thousands of people at a time (or distributed free via the Internet at no cost) — converting a much larger group of prospects than you and your sales staff might ever be able to talk to personally personally.

In my next blog post, we’ll dig into two-step marketing in earnest by discussing how to run a two-step advertisement in the newspaper, a magazine, on the Internet and elsewhere.

Have you registered to get the blog feed yet? Don’t miss what’s coming up. Click here to add it to your feed reader.

Finally, feel free comment on what you’ve read so far. Are you beginning to think differently about generating new customers — and ultimately cash — for your business?

Tell me by leaving a reply below.

Until next time,

Janet Switzer

Continue to Part 2…
How to Run a Two-Step Advertisement

How to Run a Two-Step Advertisement

An ad that specifically offers further sales help or an information package, sample or other giveaway is called a two-step ad.

Step One is using your display advertisement to compel prospects to contact you for more information.

Step Two is converting the prospect into a paying customer through: Mailing a printed literature package, making a sales call to prospects who identify themselves to you, following up with future telemarketing or email offers, or making an in-store sales pitch when prospects visit your store.

Often times, smart marketers will use a variety of sales devices in the follow-up package: Audio CDs of interviews, DVD brochures, PDF files of a colorful brochure that can be immediately emailed to prospects (instead of a printed package that must be mailed through the Post Office), printed reports, and so on.

Successful two-step ads are most often written in “direct-response style.” You’ve probably seen these style of ads — full-page, half-page and fractional-page ads that look like articles with a headline and column after column of text.

Smart two-step advertisers use this type of display ad because direct-response advertising has long been known to generate greater response and more revenue than highly designed, graphically pleasing, more “attractive” ad agency-style advertisements.

Done right, display advertising is also one of the most cost-effective vehicles for getting information out about your products and services to thousands of people. Plus, depending on how your products and services are priced, the return-on-investment (ROI) can be substantial.

The best place to advertise if you’re selling products or services that cater directly to small businesses or large corporations is in trade publications.

Unlike huge consumer publications such as Newsweek or the Los Angeles Times, “trade pub” readers are more likely to want what you have to offer.

Plus, you end up paying only to reach people who are perfect prospects to buy what you’re selling. By contrast, Newsweek goes to millions of readers who will likely never buy your business-related product.

What if you don’t sell to businesses?

Even products and services that appeal to consumers can be far more easily (and economically) advertised in non-mainstream publications. Determine first who your consumer prospects truly are, then look for publications they likely read.

Are they sports fans? Arts patrons? Wine connoisseurs? Gardeners? Boating hobbyists or bass fisherman? World travelers? Executive women? Teenagers? Start compiling a list of likely publications—either local or nationally distributed—where you might advertise.

Write your ad as if you were selling the actual product or service. Craft a compelling headline that gets prospects to read the entire ad. Talk about how your product or service is a solution to the reader’s pain — or alternatively, how it will help them accomplish a goal or pursue a specific ambition.

Fill your ad with the benefits of your product or service (not just the features) and, of course, the benefits of doing business with you or choosing your product over the hundreds or thousands of other option they might choose.

Perhaps the most singular feature of these direct-response style advertisements is their focus on the reader—rather than on a list of reasons why your business is so wonderful.

What will your product do for the reader? How will it help them? What will their lifestyle, relationships, business, personal finances, career, free time, health, abilities, skills or other personal attributes look like once they are using your product or service? What has it done for other people? What is the superior customer benefit of doing business with you versus the competition—once the prospect has decided to buy this particular product or service? What are the further benefits of doing business with you? These are all benefits that you should be writing about in your advertising copy.

Be sure to include a copywriting element called a “Call to Action” or CTA. Detail exactly what the reader should do to respond and get the information package (Step Two of the two-step campaign) — whether it’s opting-in at your website or calling your office by phone.

In my next blog post, I’ll tell you what to do with the potentially thousands of prospective new customers who respond to your two-step ad.

Finally, feel free comment on what you’ve read so far. Are you beginning to think differently about generating new customers — and ultimately cash — for your business?

Tell me by leaving a reply below.

Until next time,

Janet Switzer

Continue to Part 3…
Converting Two-Step Responders Into Cash-Paying Customers