3 Critical Marketing Points – Offer, Regular Contact, Guest not Pest
In marketing, the last thing you want to be is ‘Out of Sight and Out of Mind!’ And yet this is exactly what happens too many small business owners every day.
They make the common mistake of thinking that if they sent their prospects their brochure 11 months ago, that those prospects still have that brochure sitting on their desk as a constant reminder of their company and their products or services. They naively believe that their prospects are thinking about them every day.
The reality is, most brochures and sales pieces go unread. Many get tossed immediately. Some get filed, and many more just get lost under ever-growing piles of magazines, letters, and competitors’ brochures, catalogues and literature.
It doesn’t take long for your company to fade from your prospects’ or customers’ minds. Often it only takes a few minutes for that to happen.
To be a successful marketer, you have to understand human nature. We live in a very hectic and stressful world. Our attention is constantly being tugged in all directions. Our family needs our attention. Our health needs our attention. Our job or business needs our attention.
Add to that, the thousands of advertising messages vying for our attention every day, and you can begin to understand why it’s so difficult to get and keep your prospects’ attention.
The only chance you have of someone buying from you is when your company and your product or service are uppermost in their mind. People can focus on only one thing at a time, so you have a very narrow window of opportunity to get the response you want from your prospects and customers.
1. You Must Make a Strong Offer
Never, never invest in a marketing vehicle that merely tells people about you, your company, or your product or service. This is what most business owners do — and they get little or no response to their marketing.
If you don’t make a simple and compelling offer to your prospects and customers, then they will have nothing to respond to. They will glance at your marketing piece, and then quickly discard it and move on to the next item that attracts their attention.
You must get them to make an immediate decision to take action.
And to do that — your offer is everything!
If you don’t have the knowledge to create compelling offers to get your prospects and customers to take immediate action — then you will get very little response to your marketing. It’s as simple as that.
There is only one thing that generates response — compelling offers.
Once you learn how to create compelling offers for your product or service, your phone will literally ring off the hook. Your prospects and customers will find it difficult to resist responding.
2. You Must Contact Your Prospects and Customers Often
So many business owners get a call from someone inquiring about their products or services, and they send them some information, and never contact them again. What a waste.
People will forget about you very quickly if you don’t contact them over and over again. The more times you contact your prospects, the more new customers you will generate. The more times you contact your current customers, the more repeat and back-end sales you’ll receive.
The companies that continue to grow are the ones that understand that if you want more sales than you can handle, then you must keep reminding your prospects and customers about your wonderful products/services and your offers.
3. Become a Guest, Not a Pest
If all of your repeated contacts with your prospects and customers sound like this, ‘So, are you ready to buy yet?’ or, ‘Have you had a chance to read over my proposal?’ you will quickly lose your ‘Guest’ status and become a dreaded ‘Pest.’
To avoid becoming a pest marketer, you have to learn how to Give to Get.
You can follow-up with a periodic newsletter instead of just a sales pitch — like this newsletter. You can pass on an article that your prospects might find helpful.
With a Website, you can actually share helpful articles with your prospects and customers very inexpensively.
By providing helpful information to your prospects and customers along with your current offer, you will maintain your ‘Guest’ status. Your contacts will be something your prospects look forward to instead of something to dread.