Courtesy Gerald Yuvallos of Flickr

“You’ll attract more flies with honey than vinegar” – old wives tale.I don’t know why you’d want to attract flies. But you do want more customers.

Attraction marketing is the huge buzzword today. Basically, it’s getting customers calling you. You do this by posting content in the form of articles, press releases, radio ads and videos on the Internet or through broadcast channels.

Done the right way they’re so enticing the prospect is compelled to follow up. They almost HAVE to call you.

I won’t get too deep into the metaphysical.

I’m implementing a content marketing strategy for More Customers Online to bring in the preferred client. I’ve thought long and hard about the clients we’re going to work with and those we’re going to turn away.

Sometimes I have to turn away a client because I don’t want to work with them. Sometimes there’s just not a personality fit.

It’s much more common to turn a client away because of what the research reveals. Sometimes there’s just not enough people searching online or talking on the Internet about their type of service to justify their investment with More Customers Online.

Our philosophy is all about positive ROI for you. You’ll be a long-term client. It’s a partnership to grow your business and profits. And after doing the research if this doesn’t seem likely we part ways as friends.

Intention

You want to be intentional in your business.

I told you the More Customers Online company philosophy so you can start thinking about your company’s philosophy.

1. What kind of customers do you want to work with?

2. Who is your ideal customer?

Once you define who this is you can be intentional with your communications, your marketing investment, and your company culture to attract those customers to your business.

Content Attracts

Now you can craft content and marketing messages which will speak directly to your ideal customer. It’s so enticing they’ll be compelled to contact you. It’ll be interesting and exciting for them.

Your ideal customer will feel you’re talking directly to them 1-on-1.

The most powerful word in the English language, in any language, is your own name.

When you tune your content to this level your ideal customer will almost feel as if you’re calling out to them by their own name. And this is irresistible to them.

This is attraction marketing at its best.

A Closing Example

I was with my friend Dimitri Kozlov who came into Austin for a business growth summit.

We hung out and did standup paddle boarding. I’ve never done standup paddle boarding before. Thankfully, it was easy to get the hang of and very enjoyable. It was also very exhausting.

I vaguely remembered where the paddleboard place was. I didn’t know what the name of the place was so we couldn’t even look it up on his smartphone. But I set the intention we were going to get there and we did without incident.

Afterward we stopped at Whole Foods. We didn’t know where something was and there weren’t any workers around. Just then on the next aisle a worker seemed to appear out of nowhere.

I can’t claim any scientific proof that we attracted this Whole Foods employee right when we needed her.

But these kinds of things are happening to me more frequently. I’m believing in attraction marketing and the law of attraction more and more. A missing piece most people have to the law of attraction is you’ve got to take steps and get into action. Movement toward your desires brings them to you.

I highly suggest you implement attraction marketing into your marketing mix today. It’s the most powerful way to bring new customers into your business.

And since you’re developing compelling content which speaks directly to your ideal customer it’s an asset. Because of Google, Bing and Yahoo your content lives forever. It continues to attract your ideal customers to you forever. This is the greatest power of the Internet, when used correctly.

Leave your comments below about successes or questions you have about content marketing. It’ll be a lively conversation.

courtesy flickr only alice

Clearly communicating your local business‘ value proposition in the marketplace is paramount. Your value is communicated and you have an irresistible offer customers instantly comprehend.

They shouldn’t have to hunt and peck on your website to find this simple to understand offer.

It should be immediately clear right when they land on your full version website or your mobile friendly version website. Your offer states what your business does, the value you bring to the customer, and the cash investment they’re going to have to make in order to unlock that value.

Graphics

Graphics can be a quick and instantaneous way to get your offer across. But don’t rely solely on them.

Text Copy

You should certainly have some text sales copy at least to supplement your graphics. Think of your text sales copy as the “beast of burden”. Your graphics are the water and hormones you feed the beast to keep it pulling strong.

Bad Offer Example

I recently attended a live networking event and had trouble finding parking in downtown Austin.

The parking attendant said “that’ll be $7 please”. So I paid the man and then he said, “Just park anywhere”.

So I started backing up a little bit and pulling into a spot and he says, “No, no that’s employee parking only.”

Offer confusion

In his world “anywhere” didn’t really mean anywhere. I ended up pulling onto the next higher level and parking there.

This highlights the importance of offer clarity.

If any word is ambiguous. If any word can have multiple meanings make sure to define it for the customers. Define it explicitly so there’s no confusion.

Leave a comment below about a confusing offer you’ve seen around. If you’ve dealt with a business thinking you were going to get one thing but calling them and getting something else let me know.

These are the ambiguous offers you want to avoid in your local business. Be clear, be clear, be even more clear.

I vow to read and participate in the lively comment conversation.

Power networking involves a few quick steps.

One fundamental you probably know is that it takes 7 to 12 times for someone to see your advertising before it achieves “top of mind awareness”.

Applies to Networking

Yet so many people attend networking events sporadically and randomly. Choose 5 or 6 events each month to attend.

Attend them every month without fail.

It’s not about who you know. It’s not about what you know.

It’s about who knows you. Do they know what you do? When one of their friends has a complaint which your business can solve are you the first person they think of? Do they then recommend you?

The only way to get this position in their mind is by them seeing you in person over and over again. This is the true power of live events.

Attend the same live events over and over. This gets you the 7 to 12 times rule. You’re branding yourself as a problem solver for whatever business you’re in.

I always make good contacts at the Internet marketing party events. They happen once per month.

2 out of this year’s 4 events have landed me 2 major referral sources. These are media companies and website design companies who don’t want to do SEO or local search. They’ve been looking for a proven quality provider.

Someone they can recommend to their clients. Their clients ask them all the time for SEO solutions.

Now I’m the goto solution they recommend to their clients.

I did this by attending 11 out of the last 12 Internet marketing party events here in Austin Texas. I recommend you routinely attend the same groups events each month.

I’ve got about 10 groups I attend each month. The members there know me. And each month new people attend. So you still get to meet people you’ve never met before.

A win-win for all.

Tell me tales of your networking in a comment. You can leave a comment about the good, the bad or the ugly. The funnier the better. Useful success stories also welcome. Massive flameouts highly encouraged.

I promise you I’ll read your comment and be part of the conversation.

courtesy arbyreed on flickr

As a local business owner you probably wonder whether big Fortune 500 or Fortune 1000 companies advertising campaigns are effective.

I’m breezing through the weekly ads from grocery stores and farmers markets. One ad in particular gouges into my eyeballs like a gaff hook.

I couldn’t simply throw it away.

“It’s good mood food”

I don’t know what the hell good mood food is. I don’t think anybody does.

But that’s not stopping Arby’s and the advertising agency they hired from attempting to define it.

I’ve got nothing against Arby’s. I’ve enjoyed a Roast Beef Sandwich before.

But it’s certainly not healthy.

And people usually turn to fast food as “comfort food”. When you’re feeling down get something quick and easy.
It tastes good but you know it’s damaging you.

I’ll stay tuned in to see the progression of Arby’s “It’s Good Mood Food” long-term branding ad campaign.

As marketing campaigns go this one’s fascinating.

Leave your comment about other ad campaigns that forced you to double take.

Or the contrary side comment, a campaign so bad it was like a train wreck you couldn’t rip your eyes away
from.

I promise to read and reply to your comments in the conversation.

Learning Something New Is a Debate we often grapple with.

Two big questions

1. How hard is it going to be?

2. How long is it going to take to be worth the time investment?

Learning something new is often challenging. Challenges are good because they stretch the mind.

But we don’t like to do difficult things.

The 2nd question stymies. Beforehand, its almost impossible to know whether the skill you learn is going to be positive ROI for the time and mental energy invested to acquire it.

I am working for a client web design company. They don’t use WordPress.

I mastered WordPress.

I felt a steep learning curve using their system.

But I’ve got a handle on it now. The reason I went forward is because they’ve got over 3,000 clients nationwide and get 2 to 3 of their customers asking them about SEO.

I’m proving my SEO skills.

Once done I’ll be able to serve their clients. So in this case I was 100% sure it was worth leaping over the high learning hurdle with this quality company.

I like the owner and I like their company’s philosophy.

I wish I had a magic bullet formula to tell you beforehand with absolute certainty whether a skill was going to be worth your time invested to learn.

Use intuition. Use your common sense.

And sometimes just be okay learning something new. Because at the very least it expands your mind which is always good.

If you’ve got a cool way to evaluate the value of learning something new, post it in the comments.

Or just tell a story about something you’re glad you learned but didn’t pay off the way you thought it would.

I pledge to read and engage in the lively conversation.

Customer Service implosion. 39 mins and 55 seconds wasted.

I recently moved because of my granddad’s death. My family’s putting the house on the market. I’ve been paying the bills there because he wanted to keep the house while he was alive.

So I had to move my Time Warner Internet service. I’ve been a loyal customer with them for over 10 years.

3 Incredible Failures
(expected of Mickey Mouse operations but not Time Warner a Fortune 500)

1. They charged me $40 to move my service. I pay these guys every month and they’re going to charge me to keep paying them every month. Are you kidding me?

Epic fail. Horrible customer service.

2. I’m upgrading to their extreme bandwidth plan.

This puts an extra $25 per month in their pocket. It requires a different modem.

They expected me to spend my time and gas money to come pick up the modem. Or I could pay $5 shipping.

I negotiated for them to waive this fee.

But it still took my time and was an insult so another epic fail.

3. They send me the wrong modem.

Their mistake. Me pay the bill? They were going to charge me an additional $5 shipping to send me the correct modem.

On top of that they demanded I spend my valuable time and gas money to drive the incorrect modem they mistakenly sent me to one of their service centers.

Can you believe the nerve?

Or I had the option to just pay the bill out-of-pocket for FedEx to come pick up the modem.

Supreme Gargantuan Epic Monstrosity Fail.

Treating Loyal Customers

As compensation for my loyalty and the fact it was their mistake I suggested to balance the scales they comp me only 1 month of the extreme service.

After putting me on hold for what seemed like an eternity the lady comes back. She snarls “My manager won’t do that.” Pay for our mistake basically.

After asking to speak with the manager she puts me on hold for what seems like another eternity. My frustration crescendos. I hang up pissed off.

Time Warner is a huge company.

Shouldn’t they have better customer service than this?

You can leave your gripes in the comments below.

Your Takeaway

But the point of this post was to keep your customer’s perspective in mind. Having good customer service is expected. Use common sense in your own business.

And for all that is holy take the best care of customers who pay you monthly and have been with you for many years. These are the top 20% of your customers responsible for 80% of your profits.

They’re your gold. When they’re upset your business tanks.

Time Warner failure. Time Warner Customer Service sucks. (in case they have alerts monitoring their brand they’ll see this. Don’t think they’ll remedy it but who knows.)

Networking for local business owners is perhaps the most important skill. It’s one of the highest-paid activities you can do yet often gets pushed to the back burner.

Ivan Misner

Ivan Misner’s widely recognized as the world’s most successful power networker. Keith Ferrazzi the best-selling author and Master networker might have an argument. Learn from both guys.

Ivan Misner founded BNI – Business Networking International organization. It’s the recognized authority group for professionals to network.

Bottom line, networking should be a priority.

It can bring in more business through referrals which is the other most neglected source of gold in your business.

Ivan Misner – tips from the master

1.Ask questions that offer help

Example: “What’s an underground struggle in your business that outsiders wouldn’t know about?”

2. Give first – offer to help first based on a challenge or problem they told you during the conversation

3. Follow-up

Get their business card or contact information. Find them on social networking sites and connect with them there. Follow up with a combination of e-mail, snail mail and periodic phone calls for those strategic networking relationships which can help your business.

Again, offer to help them first before asking for anything in return.

A couple other tips:

1. Open enthusiastically, come in with high energy and a positive tone in your voice

2. Stellar body language — maintain eye contact, don’t cross your arms leave them at your side

3. Host your own events — nothing gives you more biz “street cred” than being the host of an in person business networking event. People automatically look at you in a business celebrity kind of way.

Here’s more from bizjournals:

”

“The biggest networking mistake is to try to get something from the relationship,” Camusio said. “It’s like real estate agents who only meet people who want to buy houses. You’re selling, and people can smell that a mile away.”

Ivan R. Misner, founder and chairman of BNI, a networking organization, suggested that a great networker asks questions that offer help, not just ask for favors.

“This others-oriented approach produces a powerful and positive first impression, because people remember you as the person who offered to help them — not just as someone trying to sell them something or get something from them,” Misner said. Furthermore, don’t hesitate to put other networkers in touch with each other. “Both parties will be thankful for you connecting them. What you do for other people eventually pays back, ” Camusio said.

In addition to making good conversation, a great networker is conscious of their body language. CNN Money attests that the most important body language tip is to make steady eye contact with the person you are talking to. They also emphasize to not cross your arms in a closed-off manner; instead, put them behind your back. Begin

”

Tell me about a major success networking story you had.

Had a massive networking flameout? Tell your funny story below.

I pledge to read and moderate a lively conversation.

This is the 2nd to last night I’ll be living in my granddad’s place. He died back in December of 2011.

We were close. He had up a big positive influence on my life. Our whole family misses him.

But now it’s time to sell his place. It’ll be good for me to get into a new place and start new challenges.

Earlier today I was walking through and taking pictures of the interior and exterior of the house.

My camera’s batteries died while walking the property.

I reached in to change them and said “The 1 thing I don’t want to happen is to drop these in the wet grass”.

Guess what happened…

No, I didn’t drop BOTH energy sticks in the grass. Only 1 battery touched wet grass.

It brought back into my mind just how important it is to focus on what you want. Stay away from focusing on what you don’t want. Stop even thinking about what you don’t want.

Think about what you desire. Focus on your dreams. Visualize your best outcomes.

Do this in your business. Do this in your personal life.

If you get good at doing this 90% or even 95% of the time you’ll live a way happier life and get much more of what you want.

And it’ll seem to happen as if by magic.

Don’t get me wrong. Success still requires some effort. It’ll just happen faster and with much less energy than you imagine.

Tell me about a situation where you focused on something in your business and got it. You can also tell me about a situation where negative thoughts crept in and you ended up getting what you didn’t want.

I pledge to respond to your comments and spur lively discussion.

Live events are a great way for you as a local business owner to display your expertise. People love buying from experts.

But how do you follow up?

Usually, there’s no desktop loitering for them to sign up. Nor do they bring a laptop.

Although, iPads are rocketing off the shelves and attending live events more often.

Two cool ways to build your mobile customer list:

1. Facebook business page

You must get your custom URL. To do this you must have at least 25 Facebook fans.

If you don’t have a custom branded Facebook business page or you don’t have at least 25 fans e-mail me for solutions.

Once you have your custom username you can then have them text to automatically become a fan.

Example: Facebook.com/MoreCustomersOnline

Tell your attendees to text to “32665″

Then in the message field: like morecustomersonline

Obviously, insert your own custom branded username. They’ll now be fans of your Facebook page and you can connect with and message them there.

2. QR code

These are the little bar codes you see around. Have it show your Facebook business page once it’s scanned and they can easily like and comment on it right there from their smart phones.

You can include this QR code in your PowerPoint presentation, on a 1 pager you hand out to attendees, and on your business cards.

Any other printed materials you can also include it there.

Here’s more from this story:

”

This first handy little trick is to get Facebook fans via text messaging.  This is FREE service on Facebook!

What you need to set up first:  You must get 25 fans first and ensure your username by getting a custom url.   Visit:  https://www.facebook.com/username/ to get the details.

Secondly make sure you have set up your mobile device with your Facebook account.  You can easily check by going to:  https://www.facebook.com/settings  select mobile settings and follow instructions.    (Or if you are logged into Facebook, click the edit page under the manage button on your new timeline layout.  Then select the mobile settings  and follow instructions for your mobile device and SMS messaging)

Now, during your live seminar, tradeshow, webinar, class or workshop, have the audience/attendees/students all pull out their cell phones  and join your fan page on the spot.

”

How are you using mobile marketing in your business?

If you’re not yet, what’s stopping you?

Leave your comments below because I vow to respond to you.

You’ve probably heard the adage about local business advertising “Half my advertising works I just don’t know which half”.

Double Your Money Photo via Shutterstock

 
One way you get an answer with off-line advertising is coupon codes in your ads. Your people must bring in or tell you what this coupon code is in order to get the discount offer.

You have a different coupon for each ad and each advertising channel. This way you know exactly what ad generated the customer.

It’s not full proof.

But for off-line advertising it’s the best you’ve got.

As a small business owner you’re crunched for time. Your customer’s time is almost as strained.

So design your marketing campaigns and website to respect their time. They shouldn’t have to hunt and peck for your contact info, hours of operation or office location.

Tracking

All marketing campaigns and advertising channels should be accountable.

The cool thing about the web is you can track basically everything.

For your business important activities to track would be:

– number of phone calls from the web

– number of visitors to your website

– number of visitors from search

– number of visitors from social media

– number of people from text message campaigns

– number of visitors from e-mail marketing campaigns

There are some other more specific activities which will depend on your business type. You can get some custom tracking solutions from the team here at More Customers Online.

Off-line Golden Nugget

To properly track your radio or TV ad campaigns (or even print if you’re still doing print ads) set up a different website for each of these 3 channels.

You can copy the look and feel of your main website over to these other 3 sites.

The only thing which changes is the offer. The offer you make on this page will depend on what you said in your radio or TV ad.

This way you don’t have to pay a massive amount for a whole new web design and web development team. You take what you’ve already built and further leverage it. You also get better tracking.

This way you can tell exactly how many visitors you got from your TV ad. And how many from your radio campaign.

Armed with this ironclad data you can go in to your advertising rep’s office and either negotiate better rates or a pay per performance advertising campaign.

I’ve never heard of this idea before. But it’s definitely something you should do for off-line advertising campaigns.

Here’s more from small biz trends.com:

”

ROI Is Everything

Beautiful websites, high rankings, lots of Facebook likes and Twitter followers don’t necessarily translate to high ROI.

As a person that owns a small business, you almost certainly have a shortage of either time or money. That’s why you need to set specific, measurable and attainable goals and project returns for every marketing campaign, no matter how small it seems. Track everything and take the feedback from the data you are measuring seriously. Rinse and repeat.

Thinking outside of the box with your feet firmly on the ground while implementing what’s working for your business will produce remarkable results over time.  Guaranteed.

”

How are your advertising campaigns performing?

Leave your comments below because I pledge to read and respond to them.