An email has four important parts.
1. The subject line.
2. The body.
3. The call to action.
You already knew about those three, right?
There’s another one and it’s your signature.
If you’re like most business people, your signature is boring, and even worse, it’s not selling anything.
Most folks put in name, title, phone numbers, website. Something like that.
How about adding some stuff to this?
1. A repeat call to action
2. A coupon
3. A free consultation
4. A giveaway of some sort
5. A link to even more free content
You’ll want to vary this up some. We do this for two reasons…1. To take advantage of the online real estate that’s available to you. 2. To train people to read your whole email!
As always, if you need help with this, let me know!
This is a matter of brainstorming and then trying out different variations. If you’ll include a link to something that’s not linked to otherwise (a giveaway), you can track these links and see which one has the best click through rate.
If you would like help implementing these marketing tips, or would like to discuss the many ways that we can help you make “More Sales Now”, visit our “Contact Us” page and let us know how we can help you!
Very few sales people like to cold solicit business, cold calling, knocking on doors, or even sending out cold emails. I mean, you really feel like you’re invading someone else’s space, right? But, here’s the deal. If you want to make more sales, you have to get more assertive! If you don’t talk to that potential customer, one of your competitors probably will at some point, and their business will be lost forever!
In other words, I’d suggest you get over your aversion to cold solicitation, if you have one. It’s the way big businesses are built!
Cold email is a great first step, because it’s actually not that time consuming to do, and it’s perfectly find to send cold emails to businesses (not consumers).
You’re going to need a few things to do this:
1. A way to gather the emails. There are several software programs out there where you can type in a business name and a location and find email addresses of prospects.
2. You’re going to need an autoresponder for this. Warning, DO NOT use your normal account for this, just in case your current autoresponder company decides they don’t like you doing this and shut your entire account down. Either use an inhouse mailing solution or find an autoresponder that doesn’t mind cold email solicitation.
3. Make sure you get a competent copywriter to write your cold email. You can’t “spit ball” this. Your email is basically like a very short sales letter.
4. Finally, as always, make sure you include a call to action. Sending them from your cold email to a squeeze page is a great idea.
If you would like help implementing these marketing tips, or would like to discuss the many ways that we can help you make “More Sales Now”, visit our “Contact Us” page and let us know how we can help you!
A FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) is one of the stealthiest sales tools you can have in your arsenal. Think about yourself. Have you ever avoided calling a business, or reaching out to them, because there was some niggling detail about what they sold that you didn’t understand? Have you ever almost bought, but were held back by one little question…and that question never got answered, and you never bought!
It’s happened to all of us. There’s an old marketing adage…the confused mind never buys.
How many sales are you losing because your customers are confused, and you don’t know it?
Let’s solve that problem right now. Create an FAQ. Put that FAQ prominently on your website. Print it out for your promotional materials. Give it to your sales people. Get it as widely distributed as possible!
Doing this one thing will save you time and money in lost sales!
Either think back to questions you’ve been asked by real customers, or if that doesn’t work, just put on your “customer hat” and look at your product/service from their point of view. What questions do they have, or would they have? Answer these as thoroughly and honestly as possible.
Next, publish this on your blog. You’ll want this to be a page that’s linked to from the navigation bar on your website. It’s that important!
If you would like help implementing these marketing tips, or would like to discuss the many ways that we can help you make “More Sales Now”, visit our “Contact Us” page and let us know how we can help you!
By now, if you’ve been following my posts, you should understand that great content leads to more visitors, which leads to more leads, prospects, sales…and revenue!
So, now the elephant in the room is…
Creating great content.
Like so many things, you can hire this out. I do this stuff for a living. So if you want, reach out to me.
If, however, you want to DIY (do it yourself), here are some critical tips:
Finally, be consistent. You can’t be Albert Einstein all the time. Having said that, you don’t win baseball games with home runs. You win with base hits. (How’s that for mixing metaphors!)
A great way to start is with a case study of a recent purchaser/client. Get them on the phone and ask them a few questions about their experience.
Also, make sure to keep “Idea” files and “Swipe” files. I use Evernote for this because I can easily capture inspirations no matter which device I have with me.
If you would like help implementing these marketing tips, or would like to discuss the many ways that we can help you make “More Sales Now”, visit our “Contact Us” page and let us know how we can help you!
In my experience, businesses give up on marketing themselves online because they get overwhelmed. One way of dealing with this is hiring someone like me to do the marketing for you. Another way is by repurposing content.
Take a product and describe it in a blog post. (Or service.)
Next, make a YouTube video of you reading the description. You can show the product or not, where applicable.
Turn that post into a PowerPoint presentation. Make another video with that.
Take the PowerPoint and put it up on SlideShare.
Link to all of this multiple times with social media. You can even hire outsourcers do to this for you.
Take that same content and use all the tips and tricks you’ve learned from me so far and spread the content around even more. Make sure everything has a call to action. Make sure it all has links to your website.
Sure, it’s still a lot of work, but the benefits will last for years! (or, you can hire me to do it for you !).
If you would like help implementing these marketing tips, or would like to discuss the many ways that we can help you make “More Sales Now”, visit our “Contact Us” page and let us know how we can help you!
Okay, I kind of mislead you in the subject line. This isn’t a hack exactly. But it is definitely old school.
Your smart phone is for more than just social media, taking pictures of your dog, and Googling stuff. It’s a phone! Start using it to talk to people!
So many businesses get tired of being hit up by marketers that they started hiding their phone numbers on their websites. Bad idea. Having to answer the phone and tell a salesperson no thanks, is just part of the deal. Who else is calling? Your customers! Hello!
The whole “if you need customer service hit 1, if you need accounting hit 2,” thing has really gone too far. Sure, it all has to be cost efficient, but how much would your business stand out if you actually answered the phone like people used to.
XYZ Consulting…How Can I Help You Today?
That sort of thing!
I would encourage you to try this for a month and see what the feedback is. My guess is you’ll keep doing it!
Easy, when the phone rings answer it!
If you would like help implementing these marketing tips, or would like to discuss the many ways that we can help you make “More Sales Now”, visit our “Contact Us” page and let us know how we can help you!
There are a few key skills that all business people need. Basic accounting is one. Sales ability is another. But now, with the Internet, there’s another one that if you don’t have it, you need to at least have access to someone who does, and that’s the ability to write.
So much of the Internet is written. Even if you do just video marketing, you still have to write descriptions for your videos, and if someone’s going to watch them, you’ll have to send out an email to your list. Most people can write an email that says…hey, just created a new video, click here to watch. Here’s the deal though. Can you write in a way that sells your services and engages your reader.
Everything from blog content to elevator pitches to emails needs to sell. Not one inch (digital, of course) needs to be wasted. Fundamentally, if you’re not selling you’re not creating revenue.
Are you creating revenue with the Internet for your business? Reach out to me so we can talk about that. Talk about how to make the Internet your favorite, low cost advertising medium!
If you haven’t already read books on sales and copywriting, especially Internet copywriting. You don’t have to become an expert. You just need to learn what you don’t know.
If you would like help implementing these marketing tips, or would like to discuss the many ways that we can help you make “More Sales Now”, visit our “Contact Us” page and let us know how we can help you!
I’m sure you’ve seen this, and you might even have been tempted to do it. But rest assured…it’s a loaded gun!
I’m talking about putting a quick countdown timer on a sales page and giving your prospect only a short amount of time…fifteen, thirty minutes or so…to buy at a discounted price.
I’ve tested this and the results are questionable at best. My feeling is that people don’t like being rushed, and rushing them more only leads to people not buying. Personally, I like to start out on a much better footing with my clients and customers than this.
I’ve heard from others in the business that this technique actually works. I suspect it works with some buyers in some niches and not others.
In these emails, I suggest a lot of things for you to do. Things that will absolutely increase your bottom line.
In this email, I’m suggesting that you take a long, hard look at this particular strategy. It’s a loaded gun. Could go off at any time. Just make sure you’re not looking down the barrel when it does!
Maybe best not to… (but if you do, make sure to do a proper split test).
If you would like help implementing these marketing tips, or would like to discuss the many ways that we can help you make “More Sales Now”, visit our “Contact Us” page and let us know how we can help you!
How would you like to establish yourself as a market leader and also get more leads and sales for your business at the same time, and do this easily in only a few minutes per week?
I’ve talked about your website at length. Especially how it’s doing nothing for your business if you’re not getting new visitors to it. Well, here’s an easy way to get more people knowing about you, your business, and what you do.
It’s called Blog Commenting.
Basically, you use Google to search for blogs that serve your target niche. Not competitors necessarily, although this will work with them too. But parallel businesses. Businesses that serve the same demographic as you do.
Once you locate those blogs, you comment on appropriate posts. This way you’re leveraging other business’s traffic, establishing yourself as a credible expert, and getting more buzz. It’s a win-win-win!
Here are the steps to getting rolling with this:
1. Use Google to find blogs in your demographic, location, and industry
2. Set a weekly time aside (less than an hour per week for a start) to comment. Don’t waste time worrying about what you say. Just say something intelligent and move on. Your goal is more comments not fewer longer comments.
If you would like help implementing these marketing tips, or would like to discuss the many ways that we can help you make “More Sales Now”, visit our “Contact Us” page and let us know how we can help you!
More leads, leads to more prospects, leads to more sales, and that my friend leads to more revenue. More revenue is, of course, what this whole business thing is all about, right?
So, how do you create more leads?
Here’s a tip for you. Take another look at Twitter. As a social media platform, it’s one of the most powerful out there. A lot of people get lost on Twitter, so let me give you a few tips.
1. Ignore the newsfeed. It’s useless for our purposes.
2. Start figuring out how your target market tags their posts. I’m talking about hashtags here.
3. Consider using software like Hootsuite to post new content on your Twitter account regular. You’ll need at least five posts a day to make an impact. (That’s why I said software!)
4. Make sure your profile contains a call to action and a link to your website, if that’s part of your call to action.
It might take a while to set this up, but what’s going to come out of it is new leads for your business. People will go to your website, email you, or even direct message you on Twitter. You might want to turn notifications on on your phone, or have an employee do that so you can take care of your new prospects in real time!
If you would like help implementing these marketing tips, or would like to discuss the many ways that we can help you make “More Sales Now”, visit our “Contact Us” page and let us know how we can help you!