Marketing Ideas for Small Business – 4 Fundamentals for Success

Many people think marketing needs to be complicated to be effective, but actually the truth is very different.

In fact, sticking to the basics and keeping on doing them will get you a far better result than constantly searching for the new shiny object, and flitting from one marketing method to another.

In the end, as you’ll see when you create your marketing system, effective marketing has only three parts, and it can be written in the form of a simple equation: L + C = P

Leads + Conversions = Profits

In effect, the more leads you get, and the higher percentage you convert, the higher your profits will be. That means any kind of marketing method which doesn’t help you achieve more L or C should be viewed with suspicion. Each time you’re thinking of using a new marketing method, especially one pitched by the gurus, ask yourself this simple question: “Is this likely to bring in more leads or convert more of my leads to customers?”

Even better, ask yourself whether the method has been proved to bring in more leads or convert more customers. Very often, new marketing methods, especially those connected with online marketing, are a lot of smoke and not much substance. If there’s no real evidence a marketing method has worked in the real world, give it a miss, or at least wait until you see some hard data which tell you how good (or bad!) the method actually is.

There’s another side to keeping the marketing basics in mind, and it relates to both collecting leads and converting them.

It’s all to do with what you say when you approach a prospect, either to bring them into your sales funnel as the first step in educating them about your product or service, or actually trying to sell them something, to get them to take out their credit card and hit the order button, or send the cheque in the post. It’s also is highly-effective when selling face-to-face.

In essence, every piece of marketing material needs four elements, and if you make sure your marketing stuff has these elements you’ll find yourself getting a much better result than almost everybody else out there.

The four elements are:

Tell the prospect what you have
Tell the prospect what it does
Tell the prospect why they should buy it
Tell the prospect how they can buy it

These four elements can be as simple or as complicated as you like, and can contain other marketing elements such as testimonials and pages of copy describing the product in detail. But just having them in your marketing material and sales copy will put you well ahead of the crowd.

In step one you tell the prospect what you have to sell, so there’s absolutely no confusion about it. It’s a very good idea to sell just one thing at a time, as tests prove offering more than one thing will dramatically cut response. So step one is as simple as saying: “I am selling Blue Widgets.”

In step two you describe what the product does in concrete terms. The Widget will make your house warmer or cooler. The Widget will make sure your lawn gets watered automatically twice a day.

In step three, you give the benefits of the Widget. You’ll feel more comfortable You’ll have more time to spare. You won’t need to worry about A, B, C etc.

Then in step four you say what the prospect needs to do to get his hands on your Widget. This can be as simple as saying, “Pick up the phone with your credit card in hand, dial this number and ask for the special deal on the Blue Widget.”

If you look at most advertisements in the newspapers and magazines, you’ll notice very few, if any, actually try to sell something, or even tell you what’s actually on sale. That’s why many business-owners think advertising doesn’t work.

Small Business Ideas – A Simple Tip to Grow Your Business Fast

Smart business owners care less about low price and instead put their focus on giving value.

You can – and should – take this one step further by not only providing value once someone becomes a customer or client, but by providing value even before they become a customer.

There are several reasons for doing this, but the main one is that most people, when they come to make a purchase decision, are clueless about what they really need to take into account.

They also, in many cases, have no idea of the ramifications of making the wrong decision. You, on the other hand, as the expert in your particular product or service, know full well about what needs to be taken into account, and one of the best things you can do is tell prospective customers everything they need to consider.

This helps your prospect make the right decision, but it also sets you up as the expert – the go-to guy. It also sets you up as the helpful, trustworthy guy – the one a prospect is most likely to choose.

You can give helpful information in many ways, but one of the easiest is to have a website filled with stuff people should know before they make a purchase decision.

This is especially effective from your point of view when you give away downloadable information – such as free reports in PDF format or online videos – in return for an email address, because then you open up another marketing channel (email marketing).

Now, a lot of business-owners might think giving away free information only works for those who sell information, but this isn’t true in the slightest.

If, say, you sell software you can give away trial versions of whatever it is you sell. You can offer free consultations (in person, by email or by phone), free instructional videos, free Q&A teleseminars, and so on. The list is endless and limited only by your imagination (which is great because you’ll find most of your competitors have very little of that).

Every business has its own core of expertise, and by tapping into it, and giving your prospects the benefits of it, you put yourself at a serious advantage.

Not only will this bring you more business enquiries and sales, but it helps to build a relationship and can lead to a customer becoming a long-term customer, and that’s the type of customer you really want.

Taking Charge of Your Accounts Receivable in 5 Easy Steps

Did you know? 1 in every 2 small businesses in the US struggle because of customers that can’t or won’t pay. This creates an even larger problem for these small businesses because it affects their cash flow (which is the ultimate thing that small businesses must have control over). If these businesses aren’t receiving the money they are owed, it puts a major hitch in their business operations. Small businesses need to aim to solve this issue and take care of it from the very beginning. As a small business owner, learn how to strategically manage your accounts receivable in these 5 steps.

1 – Extend credit to the RIGHT customers – Many of your headaches can be prevented by only allowing customers who can be responsible to operate on net terms. We understand, though, that this can be hard to predict. However, take every possible precaution you can. How? Create a written credit policy, make sure you have a credit application, check customers’ credit before extending and operate on COD (cash-on-delivery) terms with all new customers. Allow them to earn the privilege of net terms.

2 – Always keep an eye on your customers – You should keep a continuous watch over your customers’ finances. As you know personally from running your own business, finances fluctuate, end of story. A once loyal customer can run into financial troubles and all of a sudden turn into a delinquent account. Prepare yourself. Monitor you customers’ credit continuously to be aware of any red flags (judgments, suits, liens or bankruptcies are good examples). This will allow you to react quickly and immediately switch that customer to COD so you don’t find yourself with a delinquent account.

3 – Keep your customers in the know – Let’s face it, we’re all human. We’ve got a lot going on and it’s hard to keep everything in line. The best way to get your customers paying on time is to make sure they remember when to pay. Don’t just send them the initial invoice, but follow up with payment reminder letters (or emails). This will put you back on top of your customer’s payment priority list. Keep these contacts friendly and appreciative so the customers enjoy getting them.

4 – Make you customers love paying back – The more options and the easier you make it for your customer to pay you back, the more likely they will. What do we mean? Consider offering payment installment plans to customers. Although not ideal, giving them the opportunity to spread out smaller payments might be the key in getting your money, instead of them not paying at all. Also, definitely make online payments available for your customers. If they can simply enter their information in online, you’ve just made the process that much more simple (and cut out the waiting time for the mail).

5 – Don’t hesitate to get help – The longer you wait, the harder it is to collect. Learn to understand when an account is hopeless and it’s time to turn it into the hands of a professional. Although this should certainly be the last, final stop in your process, don’t hesitate to go there. And remember, you have options. You can sell your invoices to someone else with invoice factoring. You can look at calling a collection lawyer. And of course, you can send you accounts to a collections agency.