Posted by: Troy White
October 23, 2007
Issue #262

The Blueprint for Building a Structurally Sound Money Machine

In this issue:

• Time-tested secrets of getting the right buyers in the right mood.

• Sample marketing calendars that you can use immediately to improve your testing and returns.

• 9 Steps to ensure you leverage your past successes, and move quickly past the steps that didn’t work.

• And Much More!
  

Fellow business builder,

How can something so simple seem so difficult?

A marketing plan does NOT have to be difficult – nor does it have to take you long.

So why is it that this crucial tool is so neglected by fellow entrepreneurs and small business owners?

Time? Yes – it takes a little bit of that.

Money? No – it costs you nothing to write out the plan.

Outside Resources? No – you can do this on you own – and using the following guideline, you can do this is just a few hours.

So, really, there are no good reasons why you shouldn’t invest the time to do this.

It IS in your best interest to have one.

Why?

Because it is much more costly, and time intensive, to experiment along the way. A well thought out plan will help you put the team in place to manage all the to-do items.

There are many books on the subject, but I want to give you an easy, step-by-step formula that can help you get this done.

With the biggest shopping season
of the year now creeping up on us,
this couldn’t be more timely.

Before we begin, I am assuming that you already have a product or service offering in place, that you know what makes your product or service unique (your USP), and you know that people want to buy what you are offering. USP creation has been covered in other articles in The Total Package – so we won’t go through that again.

Once you have your USP in place, what you then need to understand is the profile of your ideal client.

The last thing you can honestly expect
to get away with here
is “everyone is my ideal client”.

It is NEVER “everyone”.

You must put a list together showing you do understand them: with their age, name, sex, income, hobbies, interests, challenges, education, employment status, etc.

If you don’t know these, you don’t know your customers.

Once you have a list of who they are
and what they want …
then you need
to write down what YOU want of THEM.

Do you want your customers to buy every month of the year?

Do you want them to double the average purchase price?

Does that match up with their profile?

If you want them to buy from you every month, but their profile does not factor in that they need to earn at least $75,000 a year, then their needs and yours are not in sync.

Make sure that you have your ideal client profile in line with who your existing clients are … or immediately change your plan to generate the ideal clients, and weed out your existing clients (so that only the ideal ones stay on your active mailing list).

Before we get into the action plan for generating more ideal clients, we need to address the question …

Are you getting your fair share?

Testimonials are an exceptional way to prove that you deliver on your promises. You can automate the process (through autoresponders or direct mail campaigns) – or you can go out and ask your best clients one-on-one for their personal stories and experiences in working with you.

And you can NEVER have too many testimonials – so make this a priority.

Now you have some proof
to hand to your prospects …

The next step: a blueprint for generating new, targeted prospects.

With your ideal client profile in hand, you will know what they read, what websites they frequent, and how, exactly, you can get to them.

You should be using a method similar to the one I laid out in these articles:

Turn Your Small Business into a State-of-the-Art New Customer Generating Machine

How to Write Lead Generation Display Ads

Customer Lead Generation Print Ads

And then using the system
to turn your leads into buyers …

Turning Your Leads Into Buyers

Ultimately, you want to end up with a step-by-step plan for finding new clients, and then getting your clients to buy more, and more often.

This can incorporate many different areas, including:

Pay Per Click ads
E-zine advertising
Banner advertising
Telemarketing
Broadcast (fax, phone, cell phone)
Direct Mail (rented lists, joint ventures)
Trade Shows (online and offline)
Signage (internal cross promotions and external publicity)
Loyalty Programs
Referral Systems
Printed Material (posters, unaddressed mail to targeted neighborhoods)
Mini Brochures or magazine/newspaper inserts
Customer Events (free and paid)
Data Base Marketing (cross promotions, upselling, targeted campaigns based on past purchases)
Radio
Newspaper lead generation
Press releases
Magazine advertising
Trade publications
Articles written for other publications
Blogging
Podcasting

The list can go on and on … which brings us to the problem.

How does the average small business owner
manage all these tools and campaigns?

One way is to put together a simple marketing calendar/campaign schedule like this:

Lead Generation	Responsible	Deadline for implantation	Tracking in place?	Results	Return or loss
Internet PPC Test	KM	October 15, 2007	Google Analytics	$4,362 sales from $688 PPC	634%
Newspaper lead gen ad (IN-TH)	TD	October 1 edition	74 leads	$1,350 sales from $890 cost	152%
Direct Mail Campaign to 90 day buyers list	TD	To mail house by October 24
E-zine advertisement (WC-Bi-weekly)	CD		3 sales from affiliate link	$399 sales from $500 costs	LOSS
Referral systems for present clients	KM	Printed postcard by Nov 1

This is an over-simplified version of a marketing plan, tracking tool and calendar to keep you on track. The key is that you do it though. How many marketing tests have you run lately where you have no idea what copy ran, when it ran, what your return was – or IF you should run it again?

Unfortunately a common problem.

All I would ask of you this week is to test some form of this calendar out for the next month or two.

See how it works for you.

And try a number of different approaches.

As a recap:

1. USP
2. Verify that a buyers market exists
3. Ideal Client Profile
4. Testimonial collection from existing clients
5. Lead generation system in place
6. Lead conversion systems in place
7. Customer retention and repeat business systems in place
8. Marketing calendar and plan used as template for all ongoing activities
9. Analyze your results to determine what worked, what didn’t, and what must be done immediately to continue the positive results attained so far

I do hope that this helps you start some simple planning and tracking in your business. That, combined with running multiple split tests, and you can quickly determine where you are best investing your money, and where you need to change your approach.

Please let me know your thoughts, and if you have any further topics on this you would like to see discussed.

To your success,

Troy White
Editor, Small Business Mastery
Supplement to THE TOTAL PACKAGE

Looking for resources related to this article? Try some of these.

Looking for more of Troy’s articles? Check these out.

Looking for past issues of The Total Package? Click here for our archives.

A Final Note:

If you have specific subjects you would like addressed, or have any comments on what you have seen here, please submit a comment below and I will see how I can help.

"Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.”

–Napoleon Hill

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Attribution Statement: This article was first published in The Total Package. To sign-up to receive your own FREE subscription to The Total Package and claim four FREE money making e-books go to www.makepeacetotalpackage.com.

 

Related posts

• Product Development with Your Customers in Mind
• Is it Time For a Party with Your Clients?
• Infrastructure Part 1
• The ‘Rithmetics of Direct Mail
• Infrastructure Part 2

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