Home Business
How To Use Simple Postcards To Generate Low-Cost Prospect Leads: Part Two
by Don Sidlowski
Home Biz Stuff Co-Founder
This is part two of a two-part article. In Part One we examined the philosophy of how to create effective postcards. Now we’ll look at the logistics of how to make them work for you. Please come back to Home Biz Stuff to read Part Two and to see all the other helpful articles on making your home business thrive.
Make It EASY For Them To Respond
Once your One Second Pitch has gotten your prospect’s attention, then whatever you do.. don’t make it hard for them to take the next step. Put your website address and email addy in the body text. This is now officially the Age of Internet and people have come to expect they can check you out online. Provide a phone number with a pre-recorded phone message they can call to learn more about your opportunity. This is called a “sizzle” line. These generate a large number of responses. You can get a low cost toll-free “sizzle” number from one of the dependable unified voice messaging companies. I like My Voice Network. For under fifteen dollars a month you get a turnkey system that notifies you by email every time someone calls your sizzle line and leaves a message.
All of these “make it easy for them” tactics will significantly increase the number of responses, especially if the list to which you mailed is not local. People may be interested in what they see on your card, but many people take offense at the notion that they have to pay to do something you want them to do. And as a result many a person that might have become a prospect instead throws your card in the can. For the cost of one toll-free call on your flat rate dedicated number? You get the picture. The pennies you spend now to get a prospect to call you may turn into hundreds or even thousands of dollars if the right person winds up joining your business.
Same goes for the mail. If you are depending on the suspect-turned-prospect to mail back the card, then don’t make her/him pay for the postage. Countless cards that might have carried your next sale are thrown in the waste instead of sent back to you if you ask the prospect to pay the fare. Sure, they know it’s only 37 cents but here again prospects expect you to absorb the cost of advertising. Go to your local Post Office and get a Business Reply Card (BRC) permit. There is no cost to do so. All you have to do is leave a deposit with the USPS (usually about $50) against which they deduct for every card that someone mails back. You only pay for the cards that are returned by means of the BRC, not for all that you mail out. It’s more than the cost of the first class stamp – about 40 cents per returned card. But most serious home business people would gladly pay a dollar to get real-time, targeted information on a qualified lead.
Bottom line: don’t be cheap when it comes to the primary means upon which you are relying to get cards back.
Nearly 100% of the people who get your postcard will read it… if your message is brief, captures their imagination, and you make it easy for them to respond. There's no envelope to slice open and no letter or brochure to unfold. With just a flip of the wrist your message is in front of your prospect's eyes. That's one of the reasons why postcards are so effective. The postcard format guarantees you'll never lose prospects who would have been interested in your offer… but didn't open the envelope to read about it. These same prospects will read your offer when you deliver it "already opened" on a postcard.
Special Low Postage Rate
In the U.S. at least there's even a special postage rate for postcards. For just 23 cents you can send your postcard by First Class Mail. And that’s the practical way for most people to go since they do not have a database of thousands of contacts (and thus cards) required to obtain bulk mailing rates.
To qualify for this special postage rate your postcard must be at least 3 ½ inches high by 5 inches long, but not over 4 ¼ inches high by 6 inches long. You also need to use paper like Hammermill 67 lb. Bristol Cover Stock (available at all Staples, Office Depot, etc.) with a thickness similar to index card stock. A standard 4" x 6" index card can be mailed at this special postcard postage rate. Also, a standard 8 ½ x 11I inch sheet of cover stock paper cut into four equal pieces will produce four 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" postcards that qualify for the special postcard postage rate. The printing cost for both of these formats is also low: a pack of 250 sheets of the stock mentioned above sells for about $8.00 USD and yields 1000 cards.. or less than 1 cent per postcard.
In most places outside the U.S. postcards don't enjoy a special postage rate. However, many non-US business owners who use postcards still report they are exceptionally effective because postcards are seldom used for business purposes outside of the U.S. Therefore, they attract more attention than in the US. Getting more attention to your offer by any means always results in more responses.
Card Deck Co-Ops
For the serious post card prospector there are a growing number of card deck “co-ops” in which you can participate. They are called co-ops because a number of advertisers cooperate to share the total cost of printing and postage. These advertisers typically contact a sponsor company that maintains a large mailing list and that is willing to do all of the legwork to get cards printed and mailed out. As you can imagine, there are advantages and disadvantages to participating in a co-op. On the plus side, you do very little work. The sponsor gets all of the cards printed, seals them into a cellophane package and ensures they are properly mailed. The sponsor sends out so many cards that s/he qualifies for bulk mailing rates, and those savings are passed along to you. You also get exposure to a huge mailing list. In most co-ops you pay for how many total contacts to which your card will be mailed: 10,000 is usually the lower end and they can go up to as many as 250,000. Even at bulk rates (11.5 cents a card) you most likely could never afford to pay postage on a 250,000 mailing let alone the cost to print 250,000 postcards. But spread around 50-100 individuals in the co-op the price becomes affordable.
That, however, also highlights the negative side of co-ops. Your postcard is in a deck with 49-99 other cards all vying for the suspect’s attention. All the more reason you need to learn and master the art of the One Second Pitch when it comes to postcard design. Your card will be sure to stand out among the rest that have way too much little type on them, or which have such badly written copy that the suspect has no clue what you are tying to sell, or which scream foolish headlines like “FREE” that anyone these days with a lick of sense ignores. The sponsor handles the printing of your card and the best ones will even offer to design your card for you, but don’t let them. In most cases they don’t know (or perhaps even care) about the One Second Pitch. Their job is to serve as middleman and the bulk mailer of postcards. You will not get a quality message with an mail-house card design. Design your own card based upon these principles.
Summary
Postcards are inexpensive and easy to prepare. Sent out in small quantities by you they are First Class Mail with a special low postage rate. You don't have to spend much time or invest much money to get profitable results with postcards. And when you participate in a co-op you can reach tens of thousands of suspects for a very low cost per contact. When you want to generate prospect leads fast while keeping your costs low… send out postcards.
COPYRIGHT 2000-05 Oneida Marketing Enterprises LLC dba HOME BIZ STUFF
About the Author: Don Sidlowski is the co-founder of Home Biz Stuff. He is a nationally known speaker, author, home-business expert, and trainer known for advancing the cutting edge concept of holistic entrepreneurism. Don can be reached at don@homebizstuff.com
[Link]
How To Use Simple Postcards To Generate Low-Cost Prospect Leads: Part One
by Don Sidlowski Home Biz Stuff Co-Founder This is part one of a two-part article. Please come back to Home Biz Stuff to read Part Two and to see all the other helpful articles on making your home business thrive. Introduction The lowly postcard is a highly effective business tool you can use to generate prospect leads at very low cost. Even the smallest business on a tight advertising budget can afford to implement a successful postcard mailing campaign. Postcards are simple and easy to prepare. You can print them out yourself in small quantities and have your postcards in the snail mail within a few days of making your decision to send them. And delivery is fast because they're sent as First Class Mail in such small quantities. You'll start to get replies from your postcards within two or three days of mailing them. Generate Prospect Leads Instead Of Trying To Close Sales Never try to close sales directly from a postcard. There's not enough space to provide the information a prospect needs to make a buying decision. The only purpose of a postcard is to generate inquiries from qualified, interested prospects. Then you respond to each inquiry with whatever your usual routine calls for: sales literature, phone call, personal presentation.. whatever you normally do when a prospect requests information about your product, service or opportunity. Learn The Secret of The One-Second Pitch Back in the 30’s when the door-to-door salesman was still a reality of everyday life and encyclopedias were still books instead of PC pages from a CD or on an Internet site, the # 1 salesman for the Encyclopedia Britannica Company in the Northeast United States used a technique he came to call the “One Second Pitch”. In those densely packed neighborhoods of row houses, he went door to door, carrying a single volume tucked under his arm. His wife slowly followed in the car with the entire set and waited at the curb at each house. When he knocked, and the door was answered by either the lady or gentleman of the house, he thrust the volume right in their face and shouted “YES OR NO?”. If the answer was no, he thanked them politely and moved onto the next house. If, however, the startled occupant blurted out, “Why, yes!” then he flagged down his wife and proceeded inside the house with the entire set to make his full presentation. The point of this true story is this: that very wise salesman knew that he needed only the merest fraction of a moment to capture a suspect’s attention. By placing the very thing he was selling right in their face, the suspect immediately knew exactly what goods it was the salesman was hawking. As such they could immediately decide whether they had an interest or not. If so, they became a prospect and the real selling began in earnest. If not, the salesman moved quickly on because he understood advertising is a numbers game. Most people who heard his pitch said no: but it only took the 1 or 2 out of 100 in a day for him to make his quota. Why take more time than necessary determining if a suspect was truly a prospect? Simple, Clean, and To-The-Point It is exactly the same with card deck advertising. The most effective message on a postcard is very brief and excruciatingly to-the-point. The message you present to the reader must tell him/her immediately what it is you are offering. They will decide in a fraction of a second if they are interest or not. If not, your card goes into the circular file along with the other rejects.. and that’s nothing more than a day in the life of advertising. But if so, then the remaining information on the card must tell the suspect just enough more about your opportunity to cause them to want to take the next step.. which is of course to turn themselves into a prospect but taking one or more of the action items you have provided. 
Example of a good One Second Pitch 
… and a poor one Just from a quick glance we can see why the card on the top is the superior design. The headline powerfully conveys the essence of the message in one second. Any person reading this card knows what category of business this is (nutritional), knows that they are a network marketing company looking for reps (no sense in beating around the bush if you want qualified leads), and even how much that rep can expect to earn upon the achievement of a threshold. That’s pretty darn good for one second’s worth of viewing time. Now, if the reader is interested s/he will read the rest of the card. In contrast, the card on the bottom is busy beyond belief. Rank amateurs in advertising always put way too much text and too many images on any-sized space at their disposal.. be it a post card or a full-page print ad. They seem to think they aren’t getting their “money’s worth” unless they fill up every square inch with verbiage, or clip art, or pictures. And color. They use the gaudiest mix of colors and violate every rule in the book about viewer’s emotional and psychological responses to different colors. This bottom card fairly well exemplifies all of the don’ts from a do and don’t list. The reader cannot tell from the headline what kind of business this might be. Stating this is "not" something (in this case a MLM) is a red flad to readers that, in fact, that's exactly what it is. In fact, from looking at this card, the reader has no idea whatsoever what this card is trying to tell them, or asking them to do. And they aren’t going to take the time to find out. This becomes just one more post card to go into the old “Round File 13” never again to see the light of day. As you can see, there is a lot more “to it” in terms of making the most effective usage of the “real estate” available to you on one little 3×5 inch postcard. Home business is real business.. not monkey business. If you want your advertising to be effective as a Fortune 500 company, then you have to design your postcards using the same tricks of the trade that the Madison Avenue creative firms use.. without paying the hefty rates they charge. Stay Tuned for More In Part Two of this article, we’ll examine just that.. how to make your postcards an effective response tool and still stay within your home business sized budget. COPYRIGHT 2000-05 Oneida Marketing Enterprises LLC dba HOME BIZ STUFF About the Author: Don Sidlowski is the co-founder of Home Biz Stuff. He is a nationally known speaker, author, home-business expert, and trainer known for advancing the cutting edge concept of holistic entrepreneurism. Don can be reached at don@homebizstuff.com [Link]
How-To Employ Penny Pinching Advertising Strategies: Part 2
by Don Sidlowski Home Biz Stuff Co-Founder Next: Step Up To Relatively Cheap Local Classified Ads Stay within your own town to start, then later you can expand to regional and eventually statewide publications. You will find local classified advertising newspapers in all shapes and sizes, with circulation from weekly to monthly. Weekly newspapers are the best, because they're usually cheaper and they get circulated more frequently than monthlies. Don't spend more than $20 for an ad per week to start. Be cheap that way! Run just a little ad like one of the following: 300 BUCKS THIS WEEK! Nutritional Supplements Sell themselves - no kidding! CALL FOR FREE INFO! STAY HOME - MAKE $$$$ Nothing crazy Product business FREE INFO! INTERNET SOFTWARE Common sense business! Free and Paid Versions CALL FOR INFO! $60-$80 A DAY! STARTING THIS WEEK Direct mail - NO SELLING CALL FOR FREE INFO! See what works. Tease the reader a little, but never lie. Bait and switch is not only unethical, giving all of us legitimate home business people a bad name, but it's stupid.. it almost never works. State whether it's a product or service you are offering. It's even ok to name the product. That way if someone responds, you know they are fully aware of what they're getting into. If you're running ads like these in a local paper where the caller won't have to use long distance, just put your local phone number in there. Then on your answering machine or voice mail tell people to leave their name and mailing address, and you will RUSH them information on the easiest, fastest way to make money from home, starting this very week! Some percentage of callers will do just that, so have your information packets pre-made and ready to go before the calls start coming in. I always have at least ten packets for each product or service I'm promoting ready to go at all times, so all I have to do when a call comes in is slap a label on the packet and get it in the mail. But when you do, be sure to write or print on the envelope (I use a laser printed label) the following: (Bizopp Name): Here’s the Information You Requested! You will see a dramatic increase in your rate of response if you remind people exactly what it was they called to request. Like it or not, people have very short memories. However, if you tell them on the envelope what’s inside, that will trigger their memory.. and once that happens, they are many more times likely to open the envelope rather than tossing it. If you are advertising in an area where the customer would have to call you long distance then it's worth the “expense” of getting a Toll-Free voicemail box. Nowadays with long distance deregulation, you can get a 1-800, 1-877 or 1-888 number at a company that provides such a service for about $15 a month, the same as (or in some cases less than) your “regular” long-distance phone service. FreedomVoice "Lite" and MaxEmail VoiceMail are good choices for beginners. Both offer easy to follow and understand online support. It’s not advisable, however, for most folks working out of home to get a toll-free number of their very own into their house. It's expensive, and the costs will eat you alive because a great many people call only to listen to the message you have posted and then hang up. With a toll-free number at home, you pay for each and every call. With a vendor, you pay a flat rate regardless of how many incoming calls you receive. This method generally works well, but you have to be patient. It takes time for your ad to run, for people to call, for the letters to arrive in the mail, and for the people to mail you back to call the number and place an order. Use Outgoing Faxes or Fax-On-Demand Not talking about using a mom-and-pop one-page-at-a-time thermal paper fax machine here. You need a computer with fax software to do this effectively. But with most PCs that comes free these days. Any small software cost is quickly overcome by virtue of the fact that this method sure is fast, and if you do it legally and ethically you get positive results immediately. It just takes a little more organization, and a little more money than the methods discussed thus far. On the other hand, if you do it illegally and/or unethically then you can expect to get busted… and you will deserve it. Fax blasting is illegal in the United States unless you follow a bunch of rules, and it is your responsibility to know what they are. One of them is that you must fax to a list of people who have requested the information. This is called a permission-based list. Also, you can only do it certain hours of the day in some states. You must identify your name and fax number on the sheet you send out. And most important of all you MUST give people a way and the chance to request they be removed from your list (and then you must immediately comply with that request). Having read all of the preceding, you can pretty easily comply across the board if you are faxing your warm list. But if you choose to buy fax leads from someone, then you better be completely sure you know the company and/or individual with whom you're dealing. If you are not then get referral from someone else who has used them, in other words get references. And stay far, far away from anyone that says they will blast your letter out for you. Chances are they are fax spammers, and not only could they get you into trouble, their lists are almost certainly untargeted old junk. Whether you do it yourself or hire a reputable firm to assist you, never send out a 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6-page sales letter. First, it comes across on the fax looking more like a book. Second, it will cost you 6 times as much, and that’s not smart. But mainly it’s this: even people that have asked to receive offers on the fax don’t mind a 1-page fax but generally despise more than that. Be smart. You are trying to get their attention: not make them so mad they don’t read what you sent! You can also do fax-on-demand. That’s where interested people call you and are given the opportunity to download a fax with more information on the opportunity you are presenting. You can either set that up with the fax software in your computer, or ask for it to be an option with the Toll-Free line you ordered earlier (above). Card Decks These are perhaps the very best way to generate a lot of leads for relatively little money. But it is an art and science to put on an effective card deck campaign. Keep watching on this blog and look for another article titled How To Use Simple Low Cost Postcards to learn all about using this technique. SUMMARY This is all pretty basic stuff but then again most people starting a home-based or network marketing business have no experience at all in how to market. And so they certainly can't afford to risk any amount of money when they don't know what they're doing.. they will lose it!! Even if they do, then most in that group don't have the budget to do all the things they know will work. So the goal is to provide some guidance in low cost methods that can’t really hurt you and just may help. You still have to apply some effort and a lot of common sense, and that’s still no guarantee of success. But at least you will be proactively doing some things to help promote and grow your business. Seize upon the methods you try that work, and do them again.. and again. And as you earn money for your efforts be sure to plow some of the profit back in to new, different programs for promoting your opportunity. COPYRIGHT 2000-04 Oneida Marketing Enterprises LLC dba HOME BIZ STUFF About the Author: Don Sidlowski is the co-founder of Home Biz Stuff. He is a nationally known speaker, author, home-business expert, and trainer known for advancing the cutting edge concept of holistic entrepreneurism. Don can be reached at don@homebizstuff.com [Link]
How-To Employ Penny Pinching Advertising Strategies: Part 1
by Don Sidlowski Home Biz Stuff Co-Founder Introduction Question: Do you know how many people in home-business blindly (and as fantastic as it sounds, often happily) invest thousands upon thousands of dollars on poor advertising they chose themselves (when they really didn't know what they were doing) and on vague advice from so-called “experts” (who can spot a sucker coming a mile away)… and then go broke before their businesses even off the ground? Answer: A lot.. too many, in fact, and there is no good reason it needs to happen. Here’s the main reason this happens. People forget (or never comprehended in the first place) that home business is real business.. not monkey business. Whether we're talking a home-based business with a staff of two or a Fortune 50 corporation with thousands of employees, business is still business. There are marketing and advertising expenses associated with whatever our product or service may be. No advertising = no customers.. and no customers = no dollars in your pockets. So you have to promote your opportunity in some way or people will never hear about it. But you don't have to start out of the gate by going for the whole enchilada.. especially when you don’t know what you’re doing. Few if any of us promoting a legitimate business opportunity are going to become millionaires after only a week’s worth of advertising, no matter how well designed and effective the program and appealing the product or service. The difference is that Fortune 50 companies understand this.. and they hire staffs of experienced professionals to help them make wise advertising choices. They bite off only what they can chew until they gain a knowledge base of what works. And that’s one of the perspectives people new to home-based business or network/affiliate marketing need to bear in mind. You would never on your life go out and purchase the most expensive computer on the market if you had never used a PC before and had no knowledge of what is good, bad, or what you need. Then why do you think you are “born” an expert in advertising and feel you can spot a winning technique when in fact you have no previous experience? You also must develop a long-term point of view to your business, and therefore to the results of the advertising programs you ultimately employ. Like the Tortoise and Haire, some programs will produce more results in a very short period of time while others provide a steady source of new prospects over the long haul. And like the old parable, both strategies will get you to the finish line. Warning: Guard Your Advertising Money Like a Jealous God Especially now with the meteoric rise of the internet as an effective tool for mass advertising, the person new to home-based business or network/affiliate marketing now has more choices than ever for ways in which to promote their opportunity. Unfortunately and inevitably, there are also those out there laying in wait for the unsuspecting and uninitiated newby to fall into their snares. Be very careful to pre-evaluate any advertising or promotional program before you lay out the cash. And be suspicious of everyone you don’t personally know, even (or in some cases especially) someone in your upline organization who conventional wisdom says you ought to be able to trust. Anyone that encourages you to spend money on advertising that you don't have – on the premise that the profits you earn will recoup your expenses – is being irresponsible with your money. If you don’t know them at all, stay far away from such individuals and do not give them your money. And if you do know them (or think you do) then ask to see all the information on the program, including projected results, so you can weigh the opportunity for yourself before blindly laying down your hard-earned money. The goal of penny-pinching advertising is to generate good, qualified prospects for your network marketing business - prospects who call you – in ways that don’t eat you alive in advertising costs. And where possible to help you finds ways to actually advertise for free. Lowest Cost Possible – Build Locally with Your Warm Market The cheapest thing you can always do is to work your “warm” market – and that doesn’t necessarily mean your family, friends, and co-workers. Goodness knows in some cases they can be the coldest market possible! But do you think you could do this? Have copies of a sales letter made, with your name and address on them, and just hand them to people with a line like, “Listen, I ran across something about the opportunity, and I then talked to this woman on a conference call, and it might sound crazy but I think this is one heck of a money-making opportunity. And since I trust your judgment before I do this I'd just like to see what you think as to whether I should”. You're not asking them to jump into business with you. You’re just asking for their advice. And, of course, in the process they have no choice but to see and evaluate “your” potential opportunity for themselves. Or do you think you could make copies of a flyer that describes your opportunity, fold them so that the headline on the first page shows, and leave 5 or 6 on the counter at the convenience store, the grocery store, the ATM machine, the car wash, or the gas pump? Or put them in little hanging bags and leave them on people’s doorknobs flapping in the breeze so they can’t be missed upon returning home? We don't recommend sticking them on windshields in parking lots because store and apartment complex managers can get pretty crabby if the wind blows them off. And people themselves tend not to like to have to remove a soggy piece of paper glued to their car’s windshield after the inevitable downpour soaks your flyer (do you?) But otherwise use your imagination! If money is absolutely tight then what have you got to lose by employing any of these strategies and doing the work yourself? Make 10 or 20 sales, put a few hundred bucks in your pocket, and then go out and use that money to move up to some of the other methods available. And you can make a few hundred bucks a week this way if you're diligent. Don’t spend what little money you have “betting the farm” on one expensive “professional” ad campaign or program when you have nowhere else to go if it fails or performs less grandly than you had hoped. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, and “bootstrap” an advertising program of your own. In Part 2 of this article, we’ll look at some progressively more complex ideas you can try. COPYRIGHT 2000-04 Oneida Marketing Enterprises LLC dba HOME BIZ STUFF About the Author: Don Sidlowski is the co-founder of Home Biz Stuff. He is a nationally known speaker, author, home-business expert, and trainer known for advancing the cutting edge concept of holistic entrepreneurism. Don can be reached at don@homebizstuff.com [Link]
How-To Use Big Benefits to Increase Your Sales
by Don Sidlowski Home Biz Stuff Co-Founder
Introduction People buy products or services from you because they expect to gain a benefit. The benefit is more valuable to them than the money they spend to get it. Here are three different ways you can use this knowledge to increase the results produced by your marketing efforts: * Immediately state the benefit to draw the prospect into your promotional message * Dramatize the feeling of enjoying the benefit to intensify your prospect's interest * Stimulate your prospect to start enjoying the benefit NOW by taking immediate action to get it Apply all three of these when you develop any promotional material , including the content of your website. State The Benefit Immediately and Clearly Learn the secret of the One Second Pitch (see the Library of Knowledge Series article posted on this blog "How To Use Simple Low Cost Postcards") when it comes to headline composition.
Never, ever make a prospect have to scratch his forehead wondering what it is you are trying to tell him. If that happens you are already dead. Your goal is to immediately draw the prospect into your promotional message. It must be as short as possible in length and exquisitely succinct in content.
State the benefit in the headline of your ad, the first sentence of your sales letter or in a title at the top of your webpage. Use it as the opening of your audio or audio-video promotions. It must immediately capture your prospect's attention and provide a compelling reason for him to continue reading or listening. Example: if you sell nutritional products in a MLM company that pays a lot of money on the first two levels and you are trying to recruit new distributors, your headline should read: Nutritional MLM Seeking Affiliates: First Two Levels Pay 60% !! Help Your Prospect to Visualize The Benefit To intensify your prospect's interest use a word picture to help him visualize the feeling of enjoying the benefit you offer. If you are selling the hair care product of a MLM company you might use these words: “The pleasing aroma of this new shampoo reminds you of driving through the country after a fresh spring rain." If you are trying to position an Internet business opportunity this might work well: “It’s Monday morning. As you get up, all your neighbors are already on the freeway trying to get to work on time. But you have breakfast with your family and decide how to spend the day while your customers place their orders at your new automated website." Creating a strong visual image in the prospect’s mind to which they can directly relate is a powerful inducement to take action. Give Your Prospect An Easy Way To Start Enjoying The Benefit Now Your goal is to get him to take immediate action now to get whatever it is you are offering. Three ways you can persuade immediate action are: make an offer with a short time deadline such as a discount or bonus; provide several easy, fast ways to buy such as online, phone or fax (and the more the better); and guarantee fast delivery. This is easy if you can deliver your product or service online. Otherwise, offer to ship your product immediately or start providing the service immediately after your customer orders it. If you work for a product-based network marketing company maintain a small inventory of the best selling products. When a customer gives you an order for it, quickly make the delivery to him from your stock, and then replace your inventory afterwards. The extra value you can provide may be all the edge you need to separate yourself from others selling the very same thing. Ask The Following Questions Is It A Benefit? There is a big difference between benefits and features. Be sure that what you're promoting provides the biggest benefit your customers get from your product or service.. and not the biggest feature of it. A feature is what your product or service is. A benefit is what your product or service does for your customers. Example: An anti-virus software program may include weekly online updates. That's a feature. The benefit is a new computer virus will never destroy any data on my computer. That's the result a buyer wants. People never buy something to get a feature. They always buy to get the benefit produced by the feature. Will It Work For A Small Ad, Too? Including all three methods of promoting a benefit in a small ad can be challenging because of the limited space available. Here's an example of how one business did it with only 18 words. "Take more profit from your business and enjoy less stress! Find out how - before your competition does." Summary
Customers buy your product or service to gain the benefit it offers. Therefore you must determine what that benefit is. Then use it in all three different ways in all your marketing materials and promotions. You'll be surprised by how it increases your sales and profits. COPYRIGHT 2000-04 Oneida Marketing Enterprises LLC dba HOME BIZ STUFF About the Author: Don Sidlowski is the co-founder of Home Biz Stuff. He is a nationally known speaker, author, home-business expert, and trainer known for advancing the cutting edge concept of holistic entrepreneurism. Don can be reached at don@homebizstuff.com [Link]
How-To Increase Your Sales & Profits
by Don Sidlowski Home Biz Stuff Co-Founder Introduction The following four-step marketing process always achieves highly profitable results. This procedure is simple, easy-to-implement and it keeps your startup expenses to a minimum. In this article, we outline a few of the more mainstream ideas. But for complete and detailed guidance, continue to check this blog for other “How-To” articles in the Library of Knowledge Series that specifically address the evaluation and use of promotional plans. Now, here's a look at each of the four steps in this process. Step One: Go In With Your Eyes Open To the uninitiated, advertising sounds so simple – finding qualified and interested suspects – but it can quickly become a money trap. How many people in a home-business do you know that have lost their shirt and pants investing in lead generation? Are you one of them? It’s what happens with people with no previous advertising or marketing experience venture into this area without some good guidance. Many persons new to home business make the critical mistake of believing that buying advertising is like buying a package of gum. Ask for gum, pay for gum.. you get gum. No surprises. Only with advertising it’s rather more like selecting a melon in the produce department of your grocery store. You can pick it up and squeeze one, hold it to your nose and smell it, even thump it in an attempt to determine freshness and ripeness. But the truth is that until you actually slice into that melon you won’t really know what you just purchased. Only with experience over time in choosing many melons do you learn how to select the perfect fruit (almost) every time. Well, that’s exactly how you need to approach advertising, marketing, and lead generation. Step Two: Generate Inquiries The objective in this step is to generate inquiries – requests for more information – from qualified and interested suspects. You can get inquiries by placing classified ads online, or by using print publications serving your targeted market. You can also get inquiries by printing the same classified ad message on a simple postcard and mailing it to a list of prospects known to have the characteristics of your target market. A suspect is a potential prospect. They request information about your product, service or opportunity and in so doing are identifying themselves as potential buyers. They want to understand the benefit they can gain from your product, service or opportunity. If you can successfully appeal to the one thing associated with your product, service or opportunity that is of value to them, then they’ll go through your sales material with a high level of attention. Suspects that respond in this fashion become prospects, persons who will seriously evaluate your offer and consider taking a buying action. Step Three: The Sales Cycle In this step, you have been contacted by a prospect and now it is time for you to: a) deliver your sales material by whatever means you have chosen, and b) to try to close the sale. Step Three is whatever you normally do with an interested prospect to try to convert him or her into a customer or client. At the end of this step, the prospect will either become a customer or will disqualify themselves from further contact. Step Four: Follow-Up Follow-up is one of the steps most overlooked and neglected by all home-based business people.. especially those new to the industry. But failing to follow-up is a huge mistake that will actually cost you twice. Paying to generate a lead in the first place and then losing a sale that could have been made only had you made the second effort. It’s therefore critical that you follow-up with previous suspects that never responded at all as well as with prospects who didn't take buying action in Step 3. How to start? To begin with, you still have all their contact information, or at least you should. Never, ever throw away contact information. It is the single most valuable asset that a marketing and sales business possesses. It cost you considerable time and money to collect lists of names, suspect, and prospects in the first place. Those lists represent real money, if not to you right now then perhaps to you later. And if not to you ever again, then perhaps to someone else anytime. This is how contact lists are bought and sold in direct marketing every day. There is an old saying in prospect and lead generation about saving contact information: keep your lists until they buy, or they die! Extensive repeated research over many years has shown that it takes multiple contacts – in some cases as many as ten or more – before most prospects become customers or clients. So this fourth step – the follow up cycle – is critical because it provides a steady source of incremental business that is very profitable for you because you incurred no additional expense in finding the prospects for it. You already had their names and contact information from prior communications. And if when you follow-up with a prospect they are not interested in the product or service to which you initially introduced them, then introduce them to another, different one. In today’s home-based business industry very few people work only one opportunity at a time any more.. that’s in-the-box, old-school way of thinking. Use every opportunity you have to cross-channel market your other products and services to the lists of people you have accumulated but who have not purchased anything from you so far. Bonus Tip: Actual Follow-Up Example Here’s just one technique for follow-up messages that you can use that will get your message noticed and read every time. It begins with a personalized opening, then repeats the same benefit promoted by the original ad to which the prospect responded. You can modify this and use it for almost any business: Hello again, Remember me? Several months ago you requested and received information from me about (insert the benefit stated in the original ad or message the prospect responded to in Step 1). Well, right now we have a Special Offer concerning this. If you'd like to receive free details about it, simply (insert the action step which you want the prospect to take in response to this message). Remember to keep your message brief and use a simple delivery format such as email or a postcard. Either format with a message like the above will be noticed and read by your prospect. Three months – that is once a quarter – is the most productive and effective interval between follow up messages to prospect and suspect lists you are recycling. It’s just short enough that the prospect doesn't forget who you are. And it's just long enough that the prospect doesn't feel like you are hounding him. It's also long enough that whatever circumstances prevented the prospect from buying in the past may no longer exist. Summary You can use this Four Step Marketing Process in your business to increase both the number of sales you get and the amount of profit you make. It just about guarantees a continual flow of new prospects, and maximizes your potential profit from each of those prospects. COPYRIGHT 2000-04 Oneida Marketing Enterprises LLC dba HOME BIZ STUFF About the Author: Don Sidlowski is the co-founder of Home Biz Stuff. He is a nationally known speaker, author, home-business expert, and trainer known for advancing the cutting edge concept of holistic entrepreneurism. Don can be reached at don@homebizstuff.com [Link]
How-To Overcome the Four Reasons People Won’t Buy
by Don Sidlowski Home Biz Stuff Co-Founder Introduction People are who prodive you with sales. It doesn't matter if you're selling lemonade to tourists or airplanes to governments. "The Government" didn't make that final decision to purchase. It was a living, breathing person in some purchasing office. Even on the Internet, every sale is the result of a live person (or group of people) deciding to buy from you. But it is a fact in sales that many of those prospective customers also decide not to buy from you. Would you like to increase the number of sales you get? It’s possible and may be easier than you think. There are really only four reasons most people decide not to buy from you. Once you understand the psychology behind each of them you can implement proven strategies to neutralize their impact and get a higher percentage of sales. Reason One: Don’t Need It People in our modern society rarely buy something because they need it. They buy something because they want it, often on impulse alone. When prospective customers tell you, "I don't need your product" what they're really saying is, "I don't want your product". How can you avoid losing these sales? Targeted Niche Marketing. You’ve got to develop the ability to promote your business opportunity only among people likely to have a strong desire for the benefits provided by your product or service. And you need to find a product or service that has a unique niche such that people can literally only get it from you.. or short of that, think they can only get it from you due to the marketing message you put forth.. or, finally, perceive that getting it from you is better than getting the same thing from someone else. In their landmark book "The 21 Immutable Laws of Marketing", Authors Trout and Ries put forth Law #2 "it is better to be first in the mind than it is to be better". In other words, if someone thinks you have done a particular something, then in their mind you have done that same something. People believe what they perceive. Example: A network marketer will lose money by advertising a business opportunity in the local newspaper. Most people that read the newspaper aren't the least bit interested in a business opportunity. Instead, you can generate a lot more business by advertising in trade magazines, newsletters, or e-zines read by opportunity seekers. Reason Two: No Money Consumers and businesses rarely avoid buying something because they don't have or can't get the money needed to make a purchase. They avoid buying what you have to offer because they place a higher priority on spending money for something else. You can get a higher portion of these sales by making your product or service their priority. What is the most pressing problem you can solve for prospects in your targeted market? Dramatize how they'll feel when your product or service eliminates that problem. Make it so important they'll move your offer to the top of their priority list. Tip: You can demonstrate a low cost for your product or service by breaking down the price to its lowest time increment. For example, "Enjoy all of this for less than 90 cents a day" for something priced at $325 a year. Almost everyone can get their arms around a buck a day.. and they lose sight of the fact that the ultimate price is actually three hundred times that. Reason Three: No Hurry Many people tend to procrastinate after they decide to buy something. As more time passes, some will even forget why your product or service was so important to them at the time. They'll be distracted by other priorities and forget all about you. Whatever, you'll lose the business. You can avoid losing sales because of "no hurry" by rewarding customers for taking immediate action and penalizing those who don't. Example: offer a special discount price or a special bonus for ordering before a deadline. Reason Four : No Trust (or at least not enough) Whether they know it or not, most people instinctively ask themselves the following questions when trying to decide whether or not to buy from you as a person: 1. Does he know what he is talking about? 2. Does he believe passionately in what he is selling? 3. Does he have my best interest in mind? 4. Do I trust him? Increase your credibility by allowing customers to communicate directly with you. For example, give them your direct phone number. You'll only get calls from serious prospects who want the reassurance of dealing with a real person. Also, many people have a greater fear of losing something they already have than they have the desire to obtain something they want. This fear causes many people to avoid buying something they really want. They're reluctant to buy because they might not get what they expect from your product or service and they'll lose their money. You have to remove this perceived risk to avoid losing business because of "no trust". Eliminate the risk by offering an unconditional money back guarantee. Or provide reassurance with testimonials from satisfied customers. Summary There are only four reasons why people decide not to buy from you. You can increase your sales and profits by understanding the thinking behind each reason and implementing proven strategies to neutralize their impact. COPYRIGHT 2000-04 Oneida Marketing Enterprises LLC dba HOME BIZ STUFF About the Author: Don Sidlowski is the co-founder of Home Biz Stuff and nationally known home-business expert and trainer known for advancing the cutting edge concept of holistic entrepreneurism. Don can be reached at mailto:don@homebizstuff.com [Link]