10 lessons in how to beat the bad economy by aggressively marketing your business
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The land of opportunity seems pretty, well, barren these days. As the country reels from our stock market roller-coaster ride and our government scrambles to make a $700 billion financial sector bailout plan work, small business owners everywhere are wondering if they stand a chance of surviving (to say nothing of thriving). Michael Masterson and MaryEllen Tribby say that you can run a successful business in today’s tough economy—but you’ve got to resist the fear-driven urge to chop your marketing budget down to the bone.
“The good news is that people still need to buy goods and services,” says Tribby, coauthor along with Michael Masterson of Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions for Your Business (Wiley, October 2008, ISBN: 978-0-470-37502-0, $24.95). “That hasn’t changed. Your challenge as a small business owner is finding those who are motivated, financially capable, and prepared to buy. And that means you’ve got to aggressively reach out to them through many different marketing channels. Believe it or not, you may be able to do this for what you’re spending now—maybe even less.”
With their new book, Tribby and Masterson set out to teach owners and employees of businesses of all shapes and sizes how to cultivate the 21st century marketing landscape. The trick? Multi-channel marketing—combining new concepts, such as search engine marketing and social media, with tried and true methods such as direct space advertising and public relations—to reach a wider customer base, build customer loyalty, and increase sales.
Unfortunately, say the authors, many businesses just aren’t taking advantage of all of the marketing channels that have opened up for them, which is an especially deadly mistake in a slow economy.
“Many small business owners have a contentious relationship with marketing,” says Tribby. “Either they don’t think marketing works for them, so they don’t do it often enough, or they think it’s a good place to start cutting when times get tough. But in reality, that’s the last thing you should do in a bad economy. This isn’t a time to focus less on marketing, but rather to do just the opposite.
“The beauty of marketing in the 21st century is that it doesn’t have to be a black hole for your money,” she adds. “Many of the channels available to you are cheap and easy to test so that you know what is working for you. And that’s especially helpful in today’s economic climate, because as a small business owner, these channels allow you to market more without spending more money.”
The key, say the authors, is direct marketing. This method offers many advantages: low cost of entry, plenty of niche markets, and the ability to accurately measure the impact of your marketing efforts on sales. It includes radio, television, magazine, newspaper ads, catalogs, and sales letters sent through the mail, and now, advertising via the Internet. As its name suggests, sales are made by evoking a direct response from the customer: making a purchase, returning a free-trial postcard, making a phone call, providing information on the advertiser’s website, and so forth.
“Once you strike the proper balance between old and new marketing methods, your business will flourish,” promises Tribby. “Multi-channel marketing offers customers more than one way to buy from you.”
Here are a few seeds of knowledge from Changing the Channel that will help you cultivate your business in today’s slow economy and the better economies of the future:
Create strong customer relationships through your marketing efforts. Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of multi-channel marketing is that it provides great customer relationship-building opportunities. Direct mail and direct e-mail allow you to stay in front of your customers. Telemarketing allows you to provide, via the telephone, additional services and benefits that they may be very interested in buying. And event marketing provides you with an opportunity to create a great, fun experience for your clients.
“Remember that integrity is key,” says Tribby. “Never promise anything that you aren’t going to be able to deliver. In fact, you should always be over-delivering on the promises you make in your marketing copy.”
Direct mail is still a viable marketing channel. In the Internet age, some business owners might turn up their noses at using a direct mail campaign to market their business. After all, direct e-mail is much easier and cheaper to use, so why not just use that? Well, the problem is that anti-spamming laws mean people have to opt-in to receiving your e-mails, which limits you to people you’ve already had contact with. Direct mail, on the other hand, can be completely unsolicited, allowing you to reach out to people who may not already be familiar with your product or business. And because you can easily test which direct mail pieces are successful and which ones aren’t, it is a safe and fast way to build a profitable business.
“There are an art and a science to direct mail marketing,” says Tribby. “The art is in writing a successful sales letter, while the science is in tracking responses and using statistical computations to plan future mailings. Developing a direct mail channel for your business will not only add a significant flow of new customers to you, it will also provide you with an infinitely rewarding intellectual business life.”
Choose efforts that help you pick the low-hanging fruit. Never forget to market most often and most strongly to those loyal customers who buy almost any product you offer them. Direct e-mail, well written and based on compelling offers, is the key. It’s easy to implement, and it is so cheap that you can communicate with your customers almost as much as you want. It also gives you the ability to test your offers, see what’s working, and quickly make changes to generate more sales. And it allows you to make your messages as timely as possible: If a major news event takes place, you can incorporate it into your sales message that same day.
“Essentially, direct e-mail is a two-step process,” says Tribby. “The first step is to develop a list of people who will accept your advertising. This list is built through the use of banner ads, insert ads, and by simply asking your customers for their e-mail addresses when they make a purchase. The second step is to send them your direct response promotions. These are usually longer pieces, similar to direct mail sales letters. It is useful to think of these two functions separately, and even to designate them as separate marketing processes within your company.”
Some forms of marketing don’t cost you a dime. We’ve already covered the affordability and ease of e-mail marketing. But there are other cheap marketing channels out there, too! For instance, you can create online buzz about your product through social media advertising. This can take many forms, from online forums to message boards to blogs to video-, photo-, and music-sharing sites to social networks and comment sections on websites. Use social media methods to stimulate conversation about you, your business, and/or your products by publishing special reports or covering news or sending out targeted surveys or questionnaires. The secret is to be genuine. To ensure that the “buzz” is positive, you have to promote yourself gradually and organically by developing genuine relationships with the social media sites you have targeted.
“It’s imperative that you are involved in the conversations on your own site,” says Tribby. “To ignore your own customers on your own site is an unforgivable mistake in today’s interconnected world. You must always be answering their questions, responding to their complaints, explaining problems and opportunities, announcing new products and services, listing upcoming events, reminding them of upcoming deadlines, and so on.”
Find customers looking for you through search engine marketing (SEM). By getting your site to the top of the results page on one of the major search engines, you can count on targeted traffic that is looking for what you have to offer. Such visitors are likely to sign up for your e-newsletter, buy your products, and keep coming back for more. Not only is SEM inexpensive and sometimes even free, it’s invaluable in helping you find your ideal customers.
“Instead of attracting a crowd of web surfers who may or may not care about what you have to offer, you’re reaching out to people who are already interested,” Tribby says. “Even better, you’re reaching out to them at the same time they are looking for you. By using SEM, you’ll put your name, ideas, website, and products in front of people who want what you’re offering. That means you’ll have a much higher chance of converting them into paying customers.”
Want to drum up great PR? Get to know the media. Of the many channels of marketing, public relations is one that every business should embrace. That’s because it is nearly free. If you have a decent writer on staff, your only cost will be the event you’re publicizing and the miniscule amount it takes to mail or e-mail out your press releases. Furthermore, when it works, it can work like wildfire, going from local to regional to national—and even to international—audiences faster than it takes to write up a marketing plan for a conventional advertising campaign. The trick is creating successful stories. In order to do that, you must know the media you want to reach and understand what kind of stories their consumers delight in.
For example, if you want your story to be picked up by USA Today, you might consider creating a public relations story that ties into a U.S. trend. If you study USA Today, you will see that most of the smaller, human interest stories are angled toward current trends. The editors at USA Today know they can’t compete with the New York Times or Wall Street Journal in terms of serious news, but they tend to overtake them when it comes to social fads of almost every type.
“It’s very important to target your press releases to the specific publications and media outlets whose customers you want to reach,” says Tribby. “Rather than sending out 1,000 general press releases about a story that has general appeal, it’s much more effective to send out a dozen or so targeted press releases containing stories that are exactly right for the intended audiences.”
Don’t go it alone. Ever considered a joint venture? Many small businesses balk at the idea. They don’t like the idea of splitting revenues. They like selling their own products because they get to keep 100 percent of the revenues. This sort of thinking misses the mark. When a joint venture is executed properly, it doesn’t subtract from a business, it adds to it. There are many ways to do joint ventures. The best JV opportunities are those that pair up businesses with asymmetrical resources and skills.
Agora, Inc., is a great example of what joint ventures can do for a business. When the company started out, it was very good at direct mail marketing, but its employees had very little investment expertise. Rather than attempt to develop financial gurus in-house, Agora went out into the media marketplace and found investment writers who had newsletters with few subscribers. Agora’s proposal to them was as follows: They would form a joint venture, with both sides as 50 percent partners. The investment writer would continue to own his subscribers and his editorial product, would continue to have all the fulfillment obligations, and would hire Agora to act as his newsletter’s marketing agent. Agora would take all the risk with the marketing efforts and keep the revenue stream. The partner would get the new subscribers risk-free. For a financial writer with limited marketing resources, it was a no-risk, all-reward proposition. For Agora, it was an efficient way to attract first-rate writing talent—some with established reputations and great track records in making stock tips. In that time, the company saw revenues climb from $1 million to more than $60 million.
“To find your JV soul mate, think about the major players in your marketplace,” says Tribby. “Consider the strengths and weaknesses of each. Ask yourself how you might benefit from working with them. Make a list of potential partners and develop a strategy to approach them and show them how they could benefit from doing business with you. After a necessary period of negotiation and implementation, you want the relationship to grow well and quickly and painlessly. The idea is to develop joint venture relationships that are easy to maintain, financially profitable, intellectually rewarding, and long lasting.”
Learn the art of the pay-per-click ad. Pay-per-click ads are typically small. On Google, they are usually limited to four lines of text—a headline, two lines of body copy, and your URL. Because this is a very technical channel and marketing tactic, many business owners and even marketing directors leave it up to their “techies” to put together their PPC campaign. This is a big, big mistake. Think of it this way: Would you have your computer guy write your direct e-mail advertising? Of course not. You’d hire a professional copywriter to write the ad. And that’s exactly who should create your PPC ad.
The trick is to make the copy both crisp and compelling. Generally speaking, it’s a good idea to create a URL that describes your product. That way, if people type your URL directly into their browser, they have an idea of what to expect. The body of your PPC ad should offer an enticing and, if possible, immediate benefit to the reader. So, if your site is DiscountedDishes.com, the body of your ad might read, “Millions of discontinued plates.” Your headline should grab your prospective customers’ attention. Unusual or newsworthy headlines can do that. A headline like “Designer China Rip-offs” can convince your prospect to click on your ad rather than another one that has a more ordinary headline.
To save big bucks on print and radio ads, take the leftovers. Whenever possible, try to purchase remnant ad space. This is ad space that has not been sold to advertisers in time for deadline in print media or air-time in radio. It is also referred to as remainder advertising or last-minute advertising space. Buying remnant space can be a huge money saver for you. Here’s how it works: Make sure you are aware of the publication’s deadline; then call right before that deadline and start your negotiations.
“About five years ago, we bought a full-page ad in USA Today for the discounted price of $1,500,” says Tribby. “We were advertising a $24 book on investing and would need only 63 orders to break even. Because the newspaper’s circulation was nearly 2 million at the time, getting 63 orders, which was a .00315 percent response, seemed like a very reasonable expectation. We ended up with 217 book orders. That’s an ROI of 347 percent on the $1,500 investment, but had we paid the rate-card price for the ad, we would have lost almost $10,000!”
Test, test, test. In multi-channel marketing, what you think means nothing; it’s what you know that counts. To determine if your prospective customers will buy what you are selling, test the waters. If you are torn between two products, test a couple of pay-per-click ads to see which one gets more clicks. The one with the most is probably the most viable option for an online business.
“Using PPC ads to gauge what customers think is exactly what we did to determine the title of this book,” says Tribby. “We had five potentially good titles, so we put all five in Google PPC ads to determine which one would really resonate with people who needed the kind of information we’re providing here. Well, based on the results of those ads, Changing the Channel won hands down. And it is a title that neither of us authors came up with; it came from someone on the Early to Rise staff.”
“The best thing about multi-channel marketing is that it’s trial-and-error friendly,” says Tribby. “You can do many of these methods cheaply, quickly, and easily. This is great news for anxious business owners who are paralyzed by the fear of making an expensive mistake. So, get started now! Throw up a couple of PPC ads…start growing your opt-in list and send out a few e-mails…have lunch with an industry expert, and ask if she’d be interested in doing a joint venture…. Your company—and your bank account—are sure to thank you!”
The land of opportunity seems pretty, well, barren these days. As the country reels from our stock market roller-coaster ride and our government scrambles to make a $700 billion financial sector bailout plan work, small business owners everywhere are wondering if they stand a chance of surviving (to say nothing of thriving). Michael Masterson and MaryEllen Tribby say that you can run a successful business in today’s tough economy—but you’ve got to resist the fear-driven urge to chop your marketing budget down to the bone.