I talked in an earlier post about the need to have “Something Good To Say” in your marketing and to be able to provide definite proof to your customers and prospects as to why they should choose you.

The above ad is one I did for a painting contractor client that eliminated all his competitors and let’s go through each element of this ad to see why it was so effective.

All the other competitive ads just had pictures of houses and painters and were full of platitudes like “free estimates” best quality” and so on.  No ads provided any reason as to why to choose that advertiser to to do your painting job.

We talked to customers and determined what the biggest concerns were and then innovated Rick’s business so he was demonstrably better than everyone else.

The Headline

It all starts with a headline to grab the reader’s attention and make them want to read more.  If you are looking for a painter, the “4 mistakes” headline will grab your attention and make you want to read more – that’s the headline’s only job.

The Sub-Head

Telling the reader that we will make sure you don’t make those mistakes keeps them engaged and wanting to know more.  That’s the subhead’s only job.  They can see the body copy of the ad has a numbered list addressing each of those issues.

Body Copy

The body copy addresses each of the customers “hot button concerns” individually and educates them as to how we will address each concern.

Point # 1 – deals with doing the job right and not mislead or trick you.  Most painting contractors are not members of the BBB – which assures the customer of an honest company and a dispute resolution system.

On top of that, very few painters are members of the PDCA trade association that specifies how the surface preparation and painting job itself is to be done to assure a quality result.

Out of the 477 painting contractors in the Denver only 10 contractors are members of both – my client is one of those 10.  We got rid of 467 competitors already!

Point # 2 – deals with a pet peeve of many homeowners who hire contractors – them showing up on time.  Many don’t even show up on the right day, much less the right time.

So how do we assure our customers we are different?  How about a $50 cash payment if we are more than 30 minutes late?  Absolutely nobody in the market would do that – we are now established as the best choice already – but we have more . . .

Point # 3 – How about painters who bait and switch and whose final bill is much higher than their bids?  We not only guarantee that will not happen but we also offer a 3 year quality guarantee and if an additional coat is needed we didn’t include in our bid, we will do it FREE!

Point # 4 – Another big complaint from customers – painters who leave trash and cigarette butts in the yard, play loud music or are rude to the homeowners or use crude language.  Our stated quality standards point out these things and assure the homeowner our painters will not do any of those things.

Point # 5 – Another outstanding benefit nobody else offers – how about a free interior decorator to advise the homeowner on paint colors and textures!  We got this done at no cost to the client either because the decorators were happy to do that for free in hopes of getting a more in depth consult.  A true win – win.

If you were looking to hire a painting contractor, would you choose anyone else?  Most people didn’t and this marketing campaign took a flat lined sales curve to double in just one year.

Call-To-Action – The forth component of any good ad is a call to action that captures the prospects information so we can market to them ongoingly if they are not ready to buy today.  The FREE Report with 15 point checklist to help a homeowner evaluate a contractor worked very well for that.

We also included the owners photo to build trust and the logos of the BBB and the PDCA.

Do you have a lot of competitors?  Need to differentiate yourself from them and become the obvious choice for your prospects?  Get in touch and let me explain how this process can help your business no matter what industry you are in.

Call or text me at 303-884-0859 or email joemcvoy@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most business owners don’t how to do effective marketing.

The purpose of this post is to outline this process in a simple way and show how we do this for our clients.  There are 5 steps.

1. Understand your Customer and their Needs

This means verifying your assumptions about your customer’s hot button needs by talking to actual customers.  You want to find out the most important things they want when buying what you sell.

For example, a home improvement contractor’s customers usually want these things: they want you to show up on time, they want you to charge what you promised, to do quality work, stand behind that work with a guarantee and keep their workplace clean and not leave trash all over.

What do your customers want?  Do you know?

2. Determine whether Innovation is necessary

How do you deliver on your customer’s needs?  Are you demonstrably better than your competitors or not? If you are just the same as everyone else you compete with, then you need to innovate the make yourself better.

This process of actually being better than your competitors is necessary so you will have something good to say in your marketing.  Marketing that just uses platitudes and says what everyone else says is a waste of money.

The key to effective marketing is to “Have something good to say”, “Say it well”, and “Say it often”.

Innovation can create that something good to say.

We have a systematic process that we use to help our clients do this so you do innovation on the issues that matter to your customers.

3.  Create your Strategic Marketing Plan

Strategy comes before tactics.  In marketing, this means developing what you say, how you say it and who you say it to.  You need to do this before creating any ads, web pages or marketing communications.

“What you say” means how you communicate your superior ability to deliver on your customers hot button needs (that you just developed by innovating as needed in the previous step).

“How you say it” is copywriting that needs to clearly and persuasively communicate why you are the best choice and . . .

“who you say it to” is your target market.

4.  Create your Tactical Marketing Plan

This has three sections – Lead Generators (include ads, landing pages, social media pages and ads, direct mail campaigns, lead magnets, referral programs, emails, etc) that bring prospects into your marketing funnel.

Marketing Tools (brochures, web sites, scripts, signage, audio content, video content, newsletters, white papers, reports, and more) further educate your prospects once they are in your funnel.  Then,

Follow-Up Systems (sequential follow up systems using email, direct mail, telemarketing, and any other multi-step follow up sequences).  Follow up sequences are intended to stay in touch with prospects by providing helpful and welcomed information over time so that when a prospect is ready to buy they will choose you.

All the components of your tactical plan educate the prospect as to how to buy what you sell and how to make the best decision for their needs whether it is you or not.

When you help people make the best decision for them, this builds goodwill and trust so that when the time comes to make a buying decision, you are the only logical choice.

5.  Create the Sales Plan

The goal here is to “franchise” your sales system by systemizing the process using marketing tools.

This will make sure you get the optimum results every time. We want to turn your company into a selling machine that doesn’t have to rely on superstar sales people but improves the performance of all.

This process does the sifting and sorting of prospects to deliver the best prospects to sales staff and also includes the creation of “knock-down” lists of key target accounts and the plans to get them closed.

Maximize & Optimize Strategies

Think of these as bonus strategies but also critically important.

– Perpetual Selling Strategies are designed to get customers to come back over and over again to provide a steady stream of sales and profits

– Joint Ventures leverage other companies customers and relationships for your mutual advantage.

– Upselling and Cross-Selling increase the profits of each sale.  You can consider including products and services that you do not provide yourself but that your JV partners offer.

– Referral Systems – we have over 30 different systems we can incorporate into your business.  Most businesses believe referrals are their absolute best prospects so don’t leave getting referrals up to chance, proactively install systems to create them!

Contact me at joemcvoy@gmail.com or by phone/text at 303-884-0859 for information on how we can help you to do all this for your business.

 

Cured from cancer in 3 minutes – a true story from China scientifically verified.  If you, or anyone you know, has cancer, then watch this video carefully and look up the other videos on this subject from the same author on YouTube.

This is a life changing video – at about 7 minutes in, he describes how a woman was cured from cancer in 3 minutes in Chia by three doctors using techniques totally unknown here in the West.

I am not selling anything in this video, I just wanted to pass this on to anyone who might need it.

The video explains why “affirmations” don’t work – the science behind affirmations and how to make them work for you – the video explains why what you are doing now doesn’t work and how to make them work for you quickly.

Being a “Spock” (the logical Vulcan in Star Trek) type personality myself, following logic, I can relate to the speaker as he was also trained in the physical sciences. When he starts talking about quantum physics and quantum technology being relevant at a personal, not only an atomic level, I get it.

Don’t be intimidated by my language, he is totally understandable to anyone, not only those trained in science. . .

The video is 29 minutes long, but very thought provoking.

Other cultures – in China, Tibet, India, and many other countries outside the US have understood this for over two thousand years . . .

It’s time for us to catch up.

After watching this, I know, if I had cancer, I’d be on a plane to see those doctors in Beijing before taking another dose of chemo . . .

What is your excuse?  We see so many people not achieving their goals and dreams because of some superficial reasons. At the Empower event last weekend we heard from a guy who is blind and is doing videos!

So, he certainly has a good excuse not to do the videos they suggest we do, but he’s made it happen anyway!  He didn’t let being blind stop him from making videos, so, what’s stopping you?

6,000 people at the Denver Empower “Don’t Be A Wussy” Event
July 19 – 21, 2013

It was a kick to be on stage looking at all 6,000 people when
they were recognizing the top earners.

 

 

The big blue bear outside the Denver Convention Center

Blogging offers plenty of entertainment value, as well as, some significant profit potential. There are a number of sites you can use to help you begin to blog. This article offers tips and suggestions to help you learn more about creating blogs or improving existing ones. The most important thing is that you have fun doing it!

Try being there for readers regularly. Make it a habit to respond to your readers when they have a question. If you can connect with readers, they feel that they can contact you. You have an obligation to your readers if your blog really takes off. If you get frustrated, think of your readers.

Don’t let your posts become long and rambly. Get right to the point. Don’t use too many words or go on for too long, as your readers will lose interest. Provide details without making your blogs overly long. Blog readers don’t want to read through a long, verbose post just to find a little bit of information. They are interested in the meat and bones of a subject and not a lot of fluffy garnishment!

Have constantly updated, quality content on your blog. These are they key to running a successful blog. If you don’t give people something worth reading, they won’t return. You can have quality content, but if you are not promoting your site, it really doesn’t matter. Make sure to promote your blog as well as producing great articles to ensure that your blog has the best chance of success.

To be successful, your blog must have a regular schedule. There are new blogs showing up every single day, and if you are not posting on a consistent basis, your visitors may start looking for someone that does. With the exception of major holidays, every day should be a blogging day.

Don’t let blogging take over your life. It’s very easy to burnout if you jump in head first and spend the bulk of your time blogging. You need to take a bit of time away from it to stay sane. Go for a walk with friends, or take a long bath. Taking some time off will let you return to your blog refreshed and ready to write.

When you create a blog, the first few posts should introduce both you and your blog’s subject in detail. That’s the sort of information you should be opening with. Include photographs and graphics which clearly illustrate what your blog is trying to achieve. You do not have to post a photo of yourself, but the graphics you do choose must visually represent the topic of your blog.

Many people use text speak to talk to their online friends, but keep in mind that this kind of communication isn’t appropriate for blog posts. You should always write out numbers and words in full, as using text slang can give your blog an unprofessional image.

Have fun with your blog! Blogging can quickly become tiresome when you don’t feel passionate about your topic. Choose a topic you love, and enjoy yourself while writing about it! Let those creative juices flow, and you will find that others will flock to your site!

Write blog posts only when you have something of value to share. Try to avoid posting just because you feel like you need to fill your blog up with information. Users will quickly notice if your blog seems to be a “just for you to hear yourself” type, and they won’t stick around.

Remember that blogging is a less formal mode of communication than traditional writing. A blog is meant to be fun and engage your readers, not preach to them about something. It’s important you treat it like this. The readers of your blog require a connection that is mostly informal and fun so they desire to visit your blog again and again.

Do not focus on money. It is certainly possible to make money from blogging, but allowing profit to become your sole motivator could spell disaster. Building a successful blog takes time and dedication and if your only interest is making money, your readers will quickly lose interest. Start blogging on topics you’re passionate about, and this will show through in your blog’s quality.

Consider putting a little extra effort into your blog’s home page. Basic blogs tend to have a homepage that is made up of the most recent posts, but you can liven things up by making yours a custom one. This is particularly important because your blog will probably be discovered through search engines or links.

Whether you’re writing a personal blog, or using a blog to help advertise your business, you should have learned some tips from this article for blogging more effectively. By utilizing the tips from this article, you can create a blog that is pleasurable for not only you, but for your readers too. Make full use of these tips to improve the quality of your blog’s content and help it distinguish itself from similar blogs.

If you are true to yourself in this marketing business on the Internet, then you are here for one thing and one thing only and that is to make money. Not having to answer to others and enjoying what you do is all well and good, but at the end of the day, you need to make a dollar. With the information in this article, you will be better prepared to make that happen.

Do not overuse AJAX or Flash. Even though it looks nice, it does not increase your search engine rankings. Flash should be used liberally, and additional keywords and links should be more prominent.

Including a FAQ can be a helpful way to advertise the products you sell or the services you offer. For any question or concern, provide thoughtful answers, and mention any products you sell which can offer a solution whenever possible. Just be sure to avoid making it look like an advertisement by going overboard with product suggestions.

Make sure your site is full of high-quality content. Your site should include content that will be visible to search engines and also be one of a kind!

Provide evidence and testimonials to support whatever you advertise. Most people do not trust everything they read. When you include things like references, guarantees and testimonials, your site becomes more credible and will help to complete a sale. If you simple have text on your site with no way to back it up, then people will most likely look elsewhere.

A good internet marketing strategy is to use image searching to your advantage. If you put images that are relevant to your niche you can get more hits than if someone was searching for text only. People who visit for the images or information may browse through the rest of your site. This will make people familiar with your company and they may just keep coming back!

To win over potential customers, consider holding a $1 sale for all new clients. You can build a buzz and get the traffic flowing to your site. Visitors will often purchase items now, rather than waiting for a future window. Be confident with your product!

By offering to donate a portion of your profits to charity you can generate interest, trust and, ultimately, sales. Most people like to help those in need, so this can be a good sales strategy that creates a win-win situation. This information should be clearly stated on your website. You also won’t need to give away a lot of your profits. Just make sure that you’re doing your part and people will ultimately respond in a positive fashion.

You do not want to spread yourself too thin, rather it is best to try several forms of Internet marketing at first. This concept is important in this type of venture because income is slow in the beginning and will not be steady until your business is well established. Keep your job until you have a stable income.

Think about what people are complaining about in your niche. Also, you will want to figure out why they are complaining. This is the way your customers can find their answer. Once you have thought of a few problems in your areas of interest, you can then begin to think of some solutions. Utilizing this strategy can assist you in finding the perfect market and it can provide the ideal mission statement as well.

Offer a money back guarantee to your customers when you market your business online. This will result in your customers feeling more secure and give you and your business credibility. Assuming the risks and giving your costumers a level of security will build your trust level with them.

One way to build your list of contacts is to set up a squeeze page. Squeeze pages effectively prompt any visitor to supply their email address for something in exchange. You can offer a free item if they give you their email address. This way, visitors receive a nice reminder of your business for no charge, and you receive more contacts for your mailing list.

Make your customers feel in control: organize your site efficiently so that your visitors can easily find what they are looking for. This is essential to today’s online world of unwanted opinions and spam. Make certain they know participating is actually an option and it will help your credibility.

Before reading this article, you may have seen Internet marketing as a waste of time. After seeing these simple tips, you should understand that the opportunities it gives your business to make money are extensive. Utilize the tips above to increase your online presence and your profits.