Business Breakthrough

By Tony Porter

Business Breakthroughs

__________________________

How To Grow

Your Business

In Today’s Market Place

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Blue Eden - Tony Porter www.blue-eden.co.uk

Business Breakthrough Marketing

Introduction

You’re a business owner or other professional and really like what you do. You love helping your customers but don’t have enough of them. If you’re like many owners you have tried some traditional marketing which hasn’t really worked and now seems to have been replaced with new online methods and social networking etc. Marketing can be effective - if you do it right and more importantly it can be an investment not a cost. It can bring you the financial and emotional rewards you deserve. That’s what this report will help to show you. If you want to have a thriving business, then you know that marketing should be top of your agenda. The trouble is, for most of us it’s not. There’s a huge pressure on business owners, with a battle between doing customer work that gen-erates income, and finding the time to do marketing that wins you your next client. Usually, of course, marketing loses! The biggest reason is that the traditional marketing we’ve been taught to do is very painful, and very hit or miss. We go out networking, hoping to bump into someone who’ll either hire us, or maybe point us at someone who might need what we have to offer. Or we fork out money for entries in directories or advertise in magazines - often without a clue whether it will bring in any new business and usually it doesn’t! I’m going to set out a series of practical strategies that mean you never have to advertise just be-cause your competitors are, worry about sending customers an email, or feel embarrassed when you ask for referrals. Now I’m not saying it’s the only way to do marketing. But it is a highly effective way - and one that works particularly well for owners of small and medium size companies So now, let’s take a look at the key components of Business Breakthrough Marketing. Understanding and implementing all or a number of the following 11 practical and proven steps will help to make a significant difference to your bottom line. I hope you find the book of considerable use. Tony Porter



1. Customers Are Shopping Without You Competing in today’s business world is not an easy task and making your business stand out from the crowd, in an increasingly congested market place is a real challenge. It’s further complicated in that there has been a major change in the way that businesses get their customers. In fact so much so that more often than not, the customer is finding the supp- lier.

Some years ago cold calling and gaining appointments to see clients over the telephone was the backbone of selling, and next to actual sales, reps were judged on how many calls and appoint-ments they made. This was known as outbound sales and marketing. More recently the way in which customers buy products and services has altered dramatically, and product led selling has been replaced with relationship selling and content marketing.

Today 85% of cold calls go to voicemail, and are never responded to. Customers Are Shopping Without You! Customers will spend 80 % of the process when looking to solve a problem research a purchase without contacting you directly. They will be using Google, their social network or referrals. When a customers reaches the point they feel they have done their “due diligence” will they then look to contact you. That is, of course, providing they have been able to find you in the first place. So the path to follow now is to be found by your customers, use great content to connect with them, and engage them in a dialogue that provides them with a source of useful, relevant information or solves their problems. This builds a relationship, and ultimately the trust cus-tomers need to have in you to buy your product or service. Find your audience. To do this, you must build lists of ideal prospects so that you can reach out to them (more on that in the next section). Make Sure They Can Find You through content. Content is your website text, blog posts, articles, white papers, videos, posts on social networking sites or chat forums. Content is king and yours needs to be effective to attract buyers! Connect with your audience. Making a connection was easy when all that it required was a warm handshake from a good sales rep. Today, you need a wide selection of digital content to tell your story in a way that consumers will respond to. Your potential clients are consuming in-formation digitally and filing it away as they make their buying decisions. An integrated mar-keting strategy ensures that you deliver the right piece of content to the right prospect.

Engage all your prospects. Many of them are not ready to buy just because you are ready to sell. You need to stay in touch with them in different manners and different styles until they are ready to buy.



2. Grow Your Business The majority of business owners that I speak to are daunted by a seemingly large and complicat-ed problem - how to grow their business. They want to know how to get more customers, to in-crease sales, or improve their profitability - in other words they want a more successful busi-ness. How many ways do you think there are to grow a business? 100ways? 200 ways? 300 ways? You may be surprised to learn that there are actually only 3 fundamental ways in which you can grow your business. They are to:

Increase the total number of trading clients Increase the frequency of purchases/visits from clients Increase the size of the average transaction The process of generating more income is significantly less daunting now you only have 3 areas to focus on. Let’s take a look at each of these in turn.

2.1 Get More Clients Gaining more clients is usually what most business focus on but it's really the hardest, and often the most expensive, way to grow your business. Here are some effective examples of how to achieve growth in customer numbers without break-ing the bank. Give Something Away for Free Your relationship with your customers is like any other relationship – people have to get to know you, trust you and like you. You have to nurture a prospect and build the relationship be-fore they will become a loyal customer. A great way to introduce you and establish the relation-ship is to give something away for free. This allows your prospects to try out your company with no risk to them. Give away a piece of information, a report or tips on a subject. Or if possible give away small tri-al size samples of your product. If you provide a service, offer a free trial, or cut down version of it. If it is not possible to do this with what you sell, and then consider whether you can offer your knowledge in the form of a free seminar or course. By doing this you are developing the relationship and showing the prospect the value of working with you. Use the Media Most people think about advertising but are you more likely to read a story or an advert? Which costs more? Most people will pay more attention to the stories and it doesn't have to cost you anything! Journalists are always looking for experts to comment on hot topics - as a business owner you are an expert in your field, can provide help with their stories and offer insightful feedback. You're making their jobs easier!



Use SEO and Newsletters Search engine optimization (SEO) has become a powerful driving revenue source for entrepre-neurs. When buyers are looking to make a purchasing decision they are increasingly turning online for answers. Optimise your website for the important keywords so your listing comes up first. You can either learn the basics of SEO yourself or outsource it but make sure you are tak-ing action - it can be one of the highest ROI decisions you ever make for your business.

Newsletters are important because it's a way to keep people coming back to your site. A prospect might land on your website looking for something but might not be ready to buy yet. Invite these people to sign up for your newsletter – for free, and you have their contact details and can keep in touch, offering them promotions/ free guides etc. That way you are likely to be at the top of their mind when they are in a position to buy from your product or service.

Get Referrals Word of mouth is a powerful tool for you to tap into as referred customers are easier to deal with, buy more, are more loyal, ask fewer questions, and are more likely to become long term clients. To get more referrals it really is worth investing in incentive scheme to reward those who send new customers your way – people have an innate desire for helping others, and love to be acknowledged for it! Offer a bottle of wine, a gift voucher for a meal, etc. It does not have to cost the earth, but it needs to show your appreciation. Be sure to let your original contact know when a referral they have made comes through.

A more basic way to get referrals is to make sure you offer top notch customer service. Don’t just offer the expected service – i.e. easy accessibility to you/your business, prompt and efficient re-sponses to queries, emails, calls or problems, but go the extra mile to get to know your custom-ers.

Form Joint Ventures An easy way to get more business is to look at who is already selling to your target market and then strike up a marketing partnership. Look at where your company sits in the buying chain and think about who your customers buy from before they buy from you and then after they buy from you. Those are the companies you want to partner with.

For example, if you run a banquet hall and want to get more weddings booked make partner-ships with the wedding planners (hired before you) and honeymoon travel companies (hired after you). A partnership could either be a simple marketing arrangement (you promote them, they promote you) or you can create a campaign where they earn a percentage of the revenues whenever they suggest working with you. They could even send a special offer to their customer list to announce the partnership and recommend that they use your services. The important thing is to look at who is already selling to the market that you're trying to reach and leverage the relationships that those companies have to shortcut your way to business growth.

2.2 Increase the frequency of purchase from current clients Much talk is focused on how to get new customers, but a much easier way to grow your business is to increase the frequency of purchases from your current clients. In other words, get your cur-rent customers to buy more often.



For example, if you run a restaurant and the average customer comes in once per month, focus your efforts on getting them to come in twice a month.

You can create a loyalty program that encourages repeat business, you can run regular promotions that are time sensitive and make people want to visit more often, and you can try to develop a personal relationship with them that ties them to your store.

Even in industries where a customer might buy from you once and then wait years before buy-ing from you again, e.g. a car purchase, look for ways to stay in touch and update them on their current situation.

Why not send an email twice a year to update your past clients on what you think their current vehicle would sell for? If they know there is a new model on the market maybe they'll think about chopping it in much sooner. If you know your clients well, you will know when their cir-cumstances change, i.e. if they have a child. So why not send the email at the appropriate time – they may be considering buying a bigger vehicle!

If you want to double your business next year you can either try to get twice the number of cus-tomers or just get your current customers to buy from you twice as often. Either way, you're doubling your business, but it's a lot easier to get your current customers to buy more.

2.3 Increase the size of the average transaction

Another way to sell more to existing clients is to increase the size of their average transaction with you. What you're trying to do is get them to spend more money than they usually do every time they buy from you.

A classic example is at a McDonald's store where they ask you if "you want fries with that?" Whenever a customer buys from you, chances are they are going to need something else that goes with their purchase. This means opportunity for your business.

If you already have other products or services then make sure you let your buyers know about them. If you don’t have a secondary offering then maybe it's time to consider creating one. What else could you offer your customers that would add value to their lives? If you've built a positive relationship with your clients then they would rather buy from you than from someone else.

If you want to test out other products or services before committing to offering them yourself, why not create partnerships and see if customers are willing to buy the add-ons?

For example, if you're a website designer, why not find a reputable SEO company and offer SEO services as an option? After a customer buys a website they are going to want to promote it so it's a logical offering to expand into. If customers pick it up then you can consider hiring someone onto your team and bringing that expertise in-house.

You're offering more value to your customers, strengthening the relationship with them, and bringing in more revenue for your business.



The key to top performance in growing our business is not to focus just on one, utilise all three:

Bring in new customers

Get them to buy more frequently and

Get them to spend more money each time they buy

3. Who Are Your Customers? It is often surprising that otherwise savvy business owners either have no idea who will buy from them, or they assume that everyone will! How much time do you spend considering who you sell to? Who your target audience is? If you are just aiming to sell to anyone with a pulse and a credit card, in doing so you will be spreading yourself too thin and wasting precious time that could be spent focusing on just those who will be your most valuable customers. This lack of clarity can lead to wrong decisions, wrong pricing, wrong marketing strategy and po-tentially ultimate business failure. The most successful small business owners understand that only a limited number of people will buy their product or service. You too can build a better, stronger business by identifying and serving a particular customer group – your target market. Regardless of whether your product or service is “High Street” or “Harrods”, whether it is aimed exclusively at women, or a specific industry, you need to get a detailed understanding of exactly the kind of individual your ideal customer is - gender, type of house they live in, what newspaper they might read. Even if you are selling to a business, it is still an individual that will buy from you! People purchase products or services for three basic reasons: To satisfy basic needs

To solve problems

To make themselves feel good

Surprisingly many business owners never analyse the source of their business. They don’t know where customers are coming from or where the repeat business is coming from, or where the best source of new business is.



So, the key questions to ask yourself are: Where do my customers come from? Where could new customers come from? Once you have established this, think about who is in a position to help you reach those custom-ers: Who else stands to benefit if my business is successful? Your suppliers stand to benefit from your success—therefore they may be more motivated to fund, help and support you in reaching your target audience. Who is in the right position with my potential clients already? - Think about who already has your customers and has already invested time, effort, money and action to get their goodwill. They could be in the perfect position to recommend, endorse or make those customers available to you with a positive pre-disposition? When you have established answers to these questions you can create your marketing messages. If you are too generic, you will significantly weaken the impact of your marketing efforts. Clients are bombarded with marketing messages from all angles – most of which they filter out. To get through these filters your marketing needs to grab their attention. But that doesn't mean you should be using the aggressive, shouting headlines of poor copywriters. Instead your marketing needs to resonate with the issues and concerns of your clients. The main filter customers use to decide what to pay attention to is: “is this relevant to me?” If your marketing messages focus on their particular industry niche, or on the specific problems or opportunities they face –then they will listen. Niche Markets It is worth bearing in mind that if you can create a niche market you immediately add value and can justify charging more for your product or service. If you aim for an exclusive market, your sale price could be up to 20 times higher, but the sell is not 20 times harder. For example if your business did garage conversions then the audience is pretty wide and more people would be in your target audience. However if you targeted Ferrari drivers and offered a special package to house their cars you can be far more targeted and focused in your marketing, and if you had spent that much on a car the chances are you would want to keep it safe and the price point would be way higher than a standard garage conversion. Validate your market niche by asking these 4 questions: Is the market easily defined and reachable?

Is the market small enough where there aren’t many competitors, but large enough for you to make a HUGE profit?

Does this market actually have and spend money? Does the market have an incredible amount of passion for the product or ser-

vice?



4. How Are You Different? One of the most important questions nearly every business owner struggles to answer is; "In a minute or less, explain what it is about your business that gives greater advantage, greater benefit and greater result to your customer than your competitors." The majority of business owners will answer "Nothing” or “quality, service, or reliability" which really does not mean much. So if you can’t answer the question off the top of your head your business may be in trouble and if your staff can’t answer the question it’s time to correct the problem.

Without differentiation in the market place your potential customers have no choice but to compare you and your competitors on price alone. This forces you to compete on price and po-tentially run your business into the ground.

We are talking about how to differentiate your business in today’s economy, we are talking about a your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Differentiation can simply come from 4 areas: Price

Unique Product

Service

Marketing

Price Your business can be most expensive or the cheapest. Either way can be very risky but can have its rewards. Look at the big supermarkets to see what it’s like being the cheapest. You can be the cheapest but you better have the best systems and processes in place to make sure you have op-timised every aspect of your business to keep the operational costs as low as possible.

Unique Product Having a unique product is not normally the case but if you do remember that you have a very small window in which to become the market leader before someone copies your product, just ask Apple. It’s more common to have a unique service either by your processes or approach. Many businesses actually have this but don’t tell their customers, this could be your USP.

Service There is such bad service out there today clients are willing to promote your business if you do provide an excellent service. Of course you can’t just say you are doing it - your business has to have a completely service orientated culture. You should always be asking yourself what I can do to make this a better experience for my customer focus on continual service improvement and always with the customer experience in mind.

Marketing The goal of marketing is funnelling highly targeted potential customers into the sales process. There is also the function of being ‘top of mind’. So when the day comes that your customer re-quires your service or product they think of you first. How you market, through what channels and what messaging you use can also stand your business apart from the rest.



Here are 50 examples of how you can express the benefits of your products, ser-vices and the company itself;

Your Product

Durability -Outlasts all other products

Better quality -A great one to fight off the price wars, because it makes a higher price jus-

tified.

Scarcity - Offer something your customers can't buy anywhere else.

Much easier to use - keep it simple, if a customer can work out how to use your super

gizmo in two seconds rather than two hours, you have the edge.

Safer to use—This is a particularly useful for customers with children. It is worth getting

an accreditation;

More efficient - Is your product easier to put together, does it save you time?

Time is ever scarcer and offering to save it is an incredibly powerful sales message.

More compact - Never underestimate the magic making something smaller, make it

pocket-size, easier to carry And transport and you could be onto a winner.

More retro-If your target customers are under 30, over 50, or trendy, they'll appreciate

the novelty of retro.

More modern-Anyone remotely interested in technology, cutting-edge design, will like

this.

Design that is more beautiful/different/funny/stylish/simple/etc.-

Something as simple as appearance can dramatically alter a customer's perception of its

worth.

More beautiful/quirky/etc. packaging-The power of packaging allows you to dress up

any product to the price point you want.

Designed by someone cool or endorsed by a celebrity - Not easy to secure, but very

powerful. Think celebrity perfumes - they might not smell great, but they sell like hotcakes.

Quieter - Applies to any product that makes noise when used, with the exception of speak-

ers

Fresher/healthier /tastier-If you sell food or drink, you can do what the supermarkets

can't. You can make things on-the-spot, preservative-free, delicious.

Greener– does your product come from recycled material, can it be recycled, what about

carbon footprint?

Made in UK/locally sourced/home-made-This holds ever-greater sway because peo-

ple increasingly want to know where their stuff has come from.



Expert's Choice -XYZ, "The natural choice of vets."

Approved by a respected organisation—Jump through the hoops of a trade or stand-

ards organisation and then put their approval seal on every bit of marketing material

you've got.

Not tested on animals- This holds sway with plenty of non-veggies, so it's well worth

shouting about

More daring—As a small business, you can be a bit more edgy and perhaps take more

risks than a large company confined by age old policies. A risqué style appeals to a far-

wider consumer audience than you might have imagined.

Affiliate –Partner with other companies to be able offer associated products with an ad-

vantageous offer

Your Service

Complementary Services

Are there other services that complement the main service that you are offering?

Better customer service—very simply, smile, be polite, build relationships with your

customers and respond to complaints and queries quickly and calmly.

Favourable opening hours

Do you go 24/7 or just open on Sundays when your competitors are closed, make a custom-

er's life more convenient and organise your business around their lifestyle . It’s much more

likely to bring them through the doors.

Faster delivery-Delivery in 30 minutes / 24 hours or your money back.

Online ordering-Offer this where competitors don't as convenience is a number one

priority for a growing number of consumers.

Your website is more efficient/reliable/quicker/simpler - It can't be said enough:

websites are key these days. Get a good one, and you look professional and encourage peo-

ple to get onthere all the time.

Offer freebies that competitors don't - This can be something as simple as offering

customers a cup of tea! It really does make all the difference.

Being UK-wide or international - A broader reach will win you more customers and

give you an edge over those who only deliver down the road.

The gender or age of employees - Think about those women-only handyman (or

handy-woman!) teams that get the contracts from women's refuges and hostels that other

companies couldn't.



Employees understanding and attitude - The best salespeople are those who know

their subject matter inside-out. Employ people with a passion for what you're doing. Use it:

train staff to know your product and be happy to explain it in-depth and make recommen-

dations.

Employee Attire- Wearing identifiable liveried clothing can make your business look

more professional and trustworthy which goes along way.

Guarantee/Warranty - If you’re confident about your product give a no quibble money

back full guarantee – this takes the risk out of buying for the customer.

Your business

No frills deal-Some people like it straight-up. Take a leaf out of Ryanair's book, or just

strip down your premises and packaging to their bare minimum to appeal to time-poor,

fuss-free individuals.

Loads of frills-Of course, for every minimalist there is someone that likes bells and whis-

tles Throw in lots of complimentary bits and bobs, pamper your customers and make pack-

aging nice.

Wider range of products-Variety is the spice of life - but that doesn't mean your shelves

need to rival the superstores. Go niche, and then go broad within your specialism. If you

have more trowels than B&Q, the gardeners will come to you.

Better payment options- difficult if you're an early-stage business because cash flow is

so key to your survival, but if you're longer-established and have enough in the bank to al-

low a 100-day payment period, you have a big edge over more stringent companies.

Better located-That can mean nearer public transport, with parking facilities, right

through to having a beautiful view. Or simply being the first of your kind in an area.

Location - location applies just as much to commercial premises as private property.

More pleasant premises - whether you go for a super-sweet old-fashioned tea-shop

vibe, a vibrant wall mural, or ultra-chic interior design, make your premises memorable

and beautiful, and customers will want to come back.

Having an outdoors - Sell food and drink? Have a garden or a pavement? Great - you've

just doubled your covers for every single month of summer. And winter too, if you get a gas

heater and a couple of pretty lamps.

Being Charitable - Put in an hour or two a week at your local old people's home, donate

5% of your profits to charity, sponsor the local kids' football team - anything along these

lines, modestly publicised, will win customers' hearts.



Full Refund Guaranteed - What way can better reduce the risk of the transaction by

getting more people lowered in their resistance barrier to take advantage of your product

or service the first time?

5. Segmentation All customers are not created equal – the Pareto Principle shows that 80% of profits come from just 20% of your customers. Therefore it makes sense to segment your customers in terms of their spend/value to you and treat the top 20% extraordinarily. It is very common for businesses to constantly focus on getting new customers and over-look those valuable existing ones that sometimes get taken for granted. Yet it can cost 6-7 times more to acquire a new customer and so it is vitally important to focus time and effort on relationships with existing clients. Don’t just send offers to target customers, reward exiting ones - send them more offers; Increase the frequency that you communicate with them; develop a more personal relationship - you don’t have to try and sell them something every time you talk to them. Treat the people that open your emails differently – work hard on the people who want to inter-act. You can set up a series of communication by using an auto responder when using email. This is a programme that automatically and immediately provides information to prospective customers and then sends follow-up message to them at pre-set time intervals.



6. Pricing It is a common assumption that most people buy primarily on price, but this is not the case! In fact only 15% of the population are price buyers. It is also a fact that this 15 % are the hardest to sell to, so it’s probably best not to even try to! Many people will avoid buying the cheapest product or service, assuming that cheap means inferior. With the current economic background and the constant gloom mongers on TV and in the press telling us how bad everything is, you would expect to see everyone driving the cheapest cars, wearing the cheapest clothes, and going on the cheapest holiday? The fact is that they are not! Getting your pricing strategy right can be a tricky thing but in actual fact you should not be de-ciding what price to charge for your product or service—your customers should be. This means that you need to test your target audience to see where to pitch your pricing. It can be tempting to sell at lower prices to attract more customers, but this is not advisable. Take a look at the extra business you have to generate if you discount! As an example if you are making an average profit of 20% and you decide to reduce your price by just 5%, you will have to generate a staggering 33% more business just to maintain the same level of income!

Seven Pricing Strategies for Maximum Profits.

1. Test a price increase. Establish exactly how much your customers would actually pay for your product or service – don’t just guess or assume. Most businesses under price themselves! A 10% price increase on a sales item of £135 @ 35% margin is £48.60 – a profit increase of 39%. Ensure you understand the elasticity of demand. Test another price increase and don’t stop testing. It may not be possible to keep charging a higher price for the same product so look at different ways of presenting or packing the offer.

Price Reduction in %

Gross Profit Margin

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 50

Volume increase in % for unchanged contribution

2 67 25 15 11 9 7 6 5 4

3 150 43 25 18 14 11 9 8 6

4 400 67 36 25 19 15 13 11 9

5 100 50 33 25 20 17 14 11

7.5 300 100 60 43 33 27 23 18

10 200 100 67 50 40 33 25

15 300 150 100 75 60 43



2 Add Extra Value - Change the Product or Service A good example of this is a concert ticket. An ordinary ticket for a show might cost £75, but if you could also meet the band and attend a post-show party it could be sold at £2000. A den-tist rather than just booking the customer a dental check-up could book an appointment with the hygienist on the same visit. Look at ways you can increase the value of your offer to your customers. 3 Create Deluxe / Premium Versions 5-10% of existing customers would spend 5 times your existing price for an added value product or service. Here are some interesting examples; A Harry Potter boxed set of books sold at £120 (and yet the full set of individual books would cost only £68). Interflora sells a dozen red roses at £35-£50 but introduced 100 red roses @ £349 A courier offers a standard delivery but a next day service at a 25% higher price for exactly the same journey. It is vital to break the link between the physical product and the price. e.g. a cup of instant cof-fee costs about 10p – and yet in Starbucks it costs nearly £3.00 with a small, medium and large option. It is then possible to flavour your drink with caramel or vanilla etc for an extra 50p You must not become a commodity, break away from this and create differentiation. 4 Change the price by offering payment plans If you are selling a high value product, you can achieve a 20-40% increase on sales if you offer a payment plan. This is because the price physically changes in the customers head For example a piece of jewellery costing £12,000 bought on a monthly payment plan is only a £1,000 per month for 1 year. 5 Don’t discount for the wealthy Wealthy people don’t generally respond well to a bargain, but they do love a deal. A high end retailer sent a letter to all of its customers promoting an event offering shirts at 3 for the price of 2. The shop provided wine and sandwiches to make browsing more pleasurable and laid out the shirts with matching trousers, belts, shoes, socks and other accessories - bundling the products together to attract a higher spend. 6 Introduce Scarcity If you look at the motor industry, when a new model is released it could have a waiting period of 3 months or 2 years, with the higher value cars usually having the longer waiting list. We want what we can’t have and the wealthy have to have what they can’t have! Often, when they are told no, they find a way to make it happen. Alternatively if you are trying to get customers to react to a sales message offer the first 6 book-ings a prize or reward. Finally think about introducing time limited offer i.e. “This offer is only available until 6pm on Friday” to move the thought process beyond the price and whether to order or not. 7 Status Give your top clients a direct phone line for a priority service; offer fast track check in services at hotels/airports; provide car collection and delivery for the servicing of high end vehicles. Of-fer real value to your top clients.



7. Knowing Your Numbers The secret of high achieving marketers is that they OBSESS about 2 important numbers

The average lifetime value of a customer

How much does it cost to buy a customer?

The reason for this is that in establishing what a customer is worth to you over their lifetime you will determine how much you can afford to spend in attracting them.

To obtain the lifetime value of a customer multiply your average sale by the average number of times they come back. You can estimate these figures to come up with a rough lifetime value fig-ure.

Estimated Average Lifetime Value = (Average Sale) x (Estimated number of times customers reorder)

E.g. In a supermarket if you spend £75 per week and the supermarket keeps you as a customer for 10 years – You will spend £39,000 with them, which is your Life Time Value. The next step is to increase the LTV of each customer – how can you get your customers to spend more with you, and remain as a customer for longer? Rather than initially focus on new customers really examine why customers stop buying, leave or defect. What can you do to re-duce this customer churn?

Now you must determine the lifetime profit (LTP) you receive from an average customer. To do that multiply your average profit per sale by the estimated number of times the customer reor-ders.

Knowing the lifetime profit of your average customer means that you know how much more you can spend to acquire each customer and still make a profit in the long run. To calculate how much in total you can spend simply add back your average customer acquisition cost to this fig-ure.

An example to determine this is:

If you invested £1000 on advertising, and you get 50 phone calls, then you are paying £20 per lead. Now if you close 20% or 1 out of 5 of those leads, you’re paying £100 (5x£20) per custom-er. If your product sells for £200, you’ve just made £1000.

50 (Calls) x 20% (Closing %) = 10 New Customers

10 (new customers) x £200 (cost of product) = £2000 Revenue

£2000 (Revenue) – £1000 Advertising Investment = £1000 in Gross Profit

It may be you have to further segment if you have widely varying products or customer types.

Once you understand your customer acquisition cost it will change your mind-set and how you think about marketing forever.



8. Selling - The Mind Side The success of your business will largely depend on your relationship with selling. You will have started your business for several reasons; being your own boss, a passion for a product or service and you need to come to terms with the fact that you will be selling 24/7. You may have a great offering, but it will not sell itself, so you must have a belief in and be confi-dent about selling! There is a tendency in this country to avoid salesmen like the plague – people hate being “sold to”. So your initial approach to customers should be about getting to know them, establishing what problem they have that your product or service can help them with, and if there is something you can offer them free initially – information, time, a sample of your product, a trial of your service? You already have the drive and passion about what you have to sell, so be really proud of what you do! You owe it to your customers to make your offer available to them, after all if you have some-thing of value you should share it.

9.Online Video The end of websites is coming. People do not want to read the Internet, they want to watch it. We are rapidly moving to a multimedia presence, and pretty soon we will even have our own TV chan-nels! Cisco the world's leading network equipment company predicts that by 2014, 90% of Inter-net content will be video. Video engages people in a way that photos and text alone can't, and it is one of the most persua-sive means of reaching your target audience. Using video brings faces, voices, personality and heart to your operation, while also demonstrating your authenticity. This form of communication is: Cheap

Simple

Persuasive

They also take up far less space on your website and can be included in blogs and sent as links in

emails.

Your videos don't have to be big Hollywood productions to be engaging and effective. You can even use your smart phone camera to create them! Setting up your own personalised You Tube Channel is relatively straight forward and free.



7 Ways to use video: Demonstrations – This can increase sales by 20 - 30% as young brains associate excite- ment with watching video Use YouTube – Google uses keywords from YouTube when it searches. Use of testimonials – YOU MUST deliver social proof of what you do. It’s powerful when other people say positive things about you. It can lead to a 50% increase in sales. Testi- monals are one of the best ways of overcoming concerns. The choice of speaker - Sometimes it works to have a professional speaker, but in the main the business owner should be the face of the business. Lead Generation Utilise PowerPoint presentations with music or voice over messages. Become the media Become a form of media in your niche, share your knowledge/expertise. Relationship Building Give useful, informative advice – step out of the box. Link yourself to events that are already in your customers’ heads. Your way to make an impact can’t be boring.

10. Internet Breakthrough Are you making best use of the Internet in your marketing? Pay Per Click (Ad Words) This method of advertising is one of the major breakthroughs in decades to reach business.

Pay-per-click (PPC) is a form of advertising which places an ad on a search engine results page such as Google or Yahoo! when a customer searches for a similar term/ phrase. PPC advertisers pay when a potential customer clicks on their advertisement, which will take them to the adver-tiser’s web site.

Advertisers have spent $20 billion on click ads – this is where Google makes money! It works brilliantly, particularly if someone is looking specifically for what you sell and getting your keywords right can have dramatic results – you select the words people search for. The secret is to have lots of keywords – up to 1000. Geographic Targeting You are able to set a geographical perimeter for how you want your ads to appear, which is good if you are aiming for local regions. You can set different campaigns in different areas to measure effectiveness. Do not use your ad to sell your product or service The only purpose of your ad is to get clients to click on your website. It’s then the job of your website to begin the process of selling your product or service.



Don’t battle for top position You don’t have to appear at the top of the search results list - you can do better with 3rd, 4th or 5th position. Don’t send all visitors to your homepage Relevance is key – 50% of those landing on your site will leave in 8 seconds if the page they click through to is not specific to their search. Site Links Good link popularity can dramatically increase traffic to your web site. Well placed links are an excellent source of consistent and targeted traffic. And due to recent developments, they can even generate additional search engine traffic to your site.

Most of the major search engines now factor Link Popularity into their relevancy algorithms. As a result, increasing the number of quality, relevant sites which link to your site can actually im-prove your search engine rankings. There is still no one "secret trick" to getting good rankings, but boosting your site's popularity may give it the edge it needs.

Display advertising Display advertising on the Internet is widely used for branding and is becoming much more tar-geted to users, much like how search engine ads can be extremely relevant to users based on what they are searching for. Display advertisers use cookie and browser history to determine de-mographics and interests of users and target appropriate ads to those browsers. Optimise your ad for longer headlines. In ads that appear above the search results, Google now uses the first line of description in an ad, and puts it alongside the header, separated with a hyphen. This applies when the first line of the ad is a complete sentence and ends with proper punctuation (e.g. a full stop or question mark). Research shows that longer headline ads achieve higher click through rates. So make sure your ad, and particularly your first description line is a distinct sentence and ends in proper punctua-tion. Privacy Policy Changes. Be sure to keep up to date with the changes of policy on Google etc. Where you capture user data, you must have a privacy policy with a link close to the sign up box if it is an opt in or order form. You must tell subscribers how they can opt out of email. Facebook Advertising This is an interesting new phenomenon. Everyone likes a shiny new object and social media is definitely the way forward. It provides unique opportunities that Google does not offer. On Google you are found by phrase, but on Facebook it is all about the person – it gives you the opportunity to create a relationship. You can see the interests of those who follow your page and therefore your advertising can be much more powerful.

Facebook gives you the opportunity to create a relationship – you can see the interests of those who follow your page and use this in your marketing. You can pay cost per click or or pay per 1000 ad views.

You can either direct your audience to your website from the ad, or to your Facebook page.



Re-marketing Re-marketing allows you to show ads to users who've previously visited your website as they browse the Web. When you use re-marketing, you'll tag pages of your site that correspond to certain categories you want to promote. For example, you could add a “TV” tag on all of the pages where you sell televisions. You can then create an Ad Words campaign to show highly relevant messages (such as ads displaying a special offer on TVs) to people who've visited these pages as they browse sites across the Google Display Network. Re-marketing allows you to communicate with people who've previously visited key pages on your website, giving you a powerful new way to match the right people with the right message. When you combine your keyword campaigns with re-marketing, you might see higher conver-sions for your campaigns overall. For example, if you have keywords that you don't use be-cause you haven't seen conversions in the past, you can use these keywords to drive traffic to your site, and then use re-marketing on the Google Display Network to capture incremental conversions from a more qualified set of potential customers.

11. Innovative Marketing Too many companies look at what their competitors are doing and in many cases try and rep-licate it. But who is to say that it is working for them? By thinking outside the box and reaching out to your target audience in a slightly less conven-tional way will differentiate you from your competition. Here are a six ways to create that difference; Voice broadcasts – A pre-recorded message delivered simultaneously to the phone of

your existing customers - a really powerful way of communicating. Tear sheets - Tear sheets are meant to look like a magazine or newspaper article that

was written about you and your business and was literally torn out of the publication. They are a unique, fun way to grab attention, create instant credibility and expert brand-ing and increase response to your marketing as an effective direct mail marketing tool, making companies and their products newsworthy with the most effective and unique direct marketing solution. This unique marketing strategy allows you to reach targeted consumers in a bold new way by instantly creating a level of third-party credibility that cannot be achieved with other methods

PURLS -Simply put, PURL means Personalized URL (web address) marketing. It inte-

grates personalisation with direct mail and the internet. You send your customers a personalized direct mail piece with a PURL printed on it. If a customer visits the web address, they are provided with their very own personalized website that contains information that is tailored specifically for them.



Handwritten letters – When using direct mail, there is a 60% chance that your letter will never even be opened. By sending a letter in a plain white envelope, with a hand written address and return address, and a regular first class stamp will significantly in-crease the chances of that letter being opened. You could even use a coloured envelope to make your mailing look like an invitation! Of course, the contents of the envelope must be compelling too – handwritten, well thought out copy will increase response rates

3d mailing – 3D Mail, is a piece of mail that has depth in addition to length and width.

The depth is what sets a 3D mailer apart. A 3D mailer can be any number of things from a cylinder or a box to something simply stuffed into an envelope that makes it look lumpy and stands out (literally) from the otherwise ordinary flyers companies send out. 3D mail sparks a little bit of curiosity! People love to be entertained. People love to feel like things are personalised just for them, and they love things that are unique. This is just why 3D mail works: it serves all three of these purposes with just one mailing!

Celebrity Endorsement - Don’t be daunted by approaching a celebrity, or by the cost

they may charge for endorsing your product or service. Visit Red Pages for contact de-tails of the celebrity agents (www.theredpages.co.uk). Follow the gossip columns, see who may be available – contracts coming to an end, shows finishing etc. Celebrities need to work too!

Summary In order to put these 11 steps into place, and make a real difference to your business, you need prioritise your time successfully. You need to: You need to look ruthlessly at your workload and see how much you can: Delegate - Who else do you work with, how can you utilise their skills to do some of

daily tasks you carry out yourself?

Outsource - Hire in the resources you need in terms of specialist staff

Automate - Success in your business involves a certain sequence of actions/ steps which need to happen. There are a plethora of tools available to you which will enable you to automate either certain work processes, or your communication with your cus-tomers.

Acceleration As part of this focus in growing your business you cannot rely on just one way of generating income. You really need to have at least 6 marketing methods going on at any one time to ef-fectively promote your business: Advertising Article Marketing Direct Sales Newspaper Direct Mail Exhibitions Guarantees Website Lead Capture Box Pay Per Click Networking Magazine Features Social Networking Re-marketing SEO Free Events Radio Advertising Free PR Email Marketing Affiliate Marketing Tele/Web seminars Referrals TV Advertising Joint Ventures Video LinkedIn Facebook Twitter You Tube Channel

http://www.theredpages.co.uk



Next Steps Build an action plan to create and implement all the missing components into a system. Get going quickly, and get some thing good that works, rather than aiming for perfection or writ-ing to have all of them ready to go. Get feedback from the real world on what works and what doesn’t - and adjust what you’re doing accordingly. Get this implemented and not only will your marketing become less painful, it’ll bring you more business quicker than ever before. If you want to get access to even more practical strategies and approaches to marketing, why not subscribe to my business breakthrough emails at [email protected] or visit www.blueeden.co.uk Alternatively if you would like to learn more about how I might be able to help you achieve your business goals, please contact me and we can have an informal chat to discuss the areas that interest you. We will have a conversation that is completely free of charge so I can learn more about your needs and challenges, your objectives and priorities. It will also allow us to see if there is a fit allowing us to move to the next step. If there is a fit, we’ll arrange a meeting, on the telephone or better still face to face to do a more in-depth “discovery session” to really understand what you need and whether I can help. Call me or email to set up an initial phone discussion. You can call me on at any time on 01327 263906 or email me at [email protected]. I hope you have gained some insights and from this book and can begin to use some of the ideas to make your business grow today!

About The Author Tony Porter helps business owners and other professionals to grow customer numbers, increase sales and improve profitability. His two areas of focus are developing customer specific messaging to position businesses as au-thorities in their field, and then how to find or be found by the target audience. Find him at www.blue-eden.co.uk.

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