Leads Generation - Marketing techniques for results driven entrepreneurs

Sep

How Grandpa’s $1,000 bar tab increased prospects by 300%

By Troy | advertising, Direct Marketing, Leads Generation, Marketing Plan, Neighborhood Marketing, Real Estate Marketing, Story Selling, Success, Wacky marketing ideas

2 Comments

Who are YOU bribing to get as a customer?

Ethical bribes, but still a bribe.

The hypsters out there will tell you that you don’t need to incent people to buy… they will just be attracted by your positive energy or incredible products and will whip out their credit cards for the pleasure to do business with you.

Realists will show you proof that plan is a sure-fire way to failure.

There was a great article I just read in the Huffington Post about a home owner who got FED UP with their realtor lack of results. Most realtors have that hope, wish and meditate on a sale until it happens BS. That’s why 97% of realtors out there make less than the waitress at your local diner.

…which is exactly the type of realtor this home owner was stuck with.

Since JUNE(!) they have had 3 showings of their home.

Less than one a month. Yikes – that is not how you sell a house.

So instead of listening to the renegade-realtor-who-does-things-oh-so-different, they took things into their own hands.

Right across the street was “Grandpas Bar & Grill” – a favorite watering hole for the neighborhood minglers.

And Grandpas place would be a friendly place to eat and drink for anyone who bought this house for sale.

The frustrated home owner had a brilliant insight and offered out of her own pocket a $1,000 bar tab at Grandpas!

Flipping brilliant.

Did it work?

A 300% increase in showings since her new promotion hit the street!

So it worked – not their wonderfully brilliant realtor just has to do half what they are paid to do…close the deal.

“We live in a place where restaurants and bars come within walking distance so we thought this was a way to cross-promote the neighborhood and our homes.”

How does this relate to you?

I hope you can see where I am going with this… if not, you need more help than I can provide )

Here are the lessons to be learned:

* Wishing and praying won’t build your business – YOU have to build your business.

* Look for complimentary businesses, products and services you can bundle in with your own products or services.

* Think outside of the basement here – how often have you seen something like this in your city? I doubt if you have ever seen a $1000 bar tab with home purchase offer before. Why not? It makes sense! Or a $1,000 restaurant gift. Or a $1,0000 maid service. Or a $1,000 credit towards movers. When you are selling a home worth a few hundred thousand dollars, a grand out of your own pocket isn’t going to kill you, or the deal. If you are selling a product or service worth $200 – a $50 gift certificate is worth it (especially when you factor in repeat business from the client once you get them into your marketing funnel – right?)

* The economy is still sluggish and people are not spending like they used to – so you had better think up some very innovative ways to get them to notice you, over the hundreds/thousands of others trying to get inside their wallets also.

* Many realtors are clueless when it comes to marketing your home – so pick and choose wisely. See if you can find one who has at least studied SOME direct marketing. It won’t be easy to find (I’ve looked)…but snag one if you find one.

This was a great example of an average everyday homeowner who got fed up with dismal results and took it into their own hands.

Not only have they tripled their prospects…

…the got MASSIVE media attention from this (Huffington Post, NBC Chicago, Sun Times, to name a few). That alone is worth a fortune for both the home owner and for Grandpa’s bar!

Last – she got over the hoping and praying phase that her realtor would perform for her – and she took ACTION to do it herself.

This is a very recent story, so we will have to wait and see how effective it is… but with 300% more prospects to talk to, odds are VERY good someone will buy soon (and they will have a hell of a good story to tell their friends and family about this home they bought which was in all these newspapers!)

Now get busy.

Troy

PS: We are just getting ready to launch the new and improved Cash Flow Calendar for 2012 – 15 months of done-for-you, pre-written marketing campaigns, and a TON of money making tools that you haven’t seen here before.

Watch for it.

In the meantime, there are a number of solutions here to help you grow your sales if they are slow http://www.blog.smallbusinesscopywriter.com/on-line-store/

Jul

The difference between B2B and B2C

By Troy | advertising, Affluent buyers, Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, Leads Generation, Marketing on the web

13 Comments

After nearly 10 years of helping entrepreneurs improve their marketing, I still get a kick out of people that claim “my business is different”.

Usually they claim their buyers are different than any other buyers.

Often though it comes down to this…

“…I sell to businesses – not consumers. And business buyers don’t fall for the same tricks you are sharing Troy.”

I will say this… Business to business (B2B) buyers are NOT different than Business to consumer (B2C) buyers!

A BUSINESS cannot buy anything.

Someone, somewhere, has to be involved in the purchasing process.

And anytime a person is involved, there are biases, prejudices, emotional triggers and hidden motives involved.

As much as we like to pretend otherwise, I don’t think there are too many businesses who use robots for purchasing from strangers. )

Yes, there can be minor changes you make to your campaigns to target business buyers, but people are people and the exact same tools and techniques that work in the B2C market ALSO work in the B2B market.

I have shown this many times over the past blog posts.

Like the one client who sells B2B: we sent out 200 letters to a COLD list… business buyers who had NEVER heard of him before. These were highly sophisticated buyers who worked for companies that ranged from $5 million a year to $500 million a year.

We mailed a 2-page black and white letter (no fancy brochures – no gloss – no color – not even a picture to be seen).

We sent it DIRECTLY to the purchasers.

We got a 18% response rate (the goal of the campaign was to initiate direct contact with the purchasing managers – either through a phone call or email… in essence, getting that first foot in the door).

The letter talked more about his family than his business!

And we got email after email THANKING US FOR WRITING A PERSONAL LETTER.

One guy said “I get DOZENS of ‘pitch letters’ like this a week – I want to commend you on writing a very personal letter like this – I wish I saw more of this in my business”.

Hum.

Guess something like that shows you that B2B buyers are NOT different…. they are people and like to buy from people.

So keep that in mind next time you are thinking up excuses on why YOUR buyers are different.

They aren’t that different.

They still eat, sleep, dream and have fears or dreams.

They are people like you and I are.

Treat them that way.

Not many B2B sellers do… so you will definitely stand out from the rest of the nonsense!

Troy

PS: I wanted to make sure you understand this – I have personally sold both B2B and B2C.

When I was working for Hewlett Packard in their Unix systems group… I sold $50,000 computer systems to business buyers. I also sold multi-million dollar servers and storage systems to business buyers. There was ALWAYS a person writing the final orders. Those people wanted to be TREATED like a human being too.

One potential client I nurtured for 2 years selling them smaller systems, ultimately knowing a big purchase order was coming… eventually.

And it did.

$3 million dollars worth of computer gear was sold in the end – the only reason he bought? “Because I stuck with him, and treated him the way he wanted to be treated. Not like some robot purchasing system. That was from him – the one who signed the purchase order and cheque.

If I treated him differently – the sale would have NEVER gone through.

Jun

Canada Post’s Secret… Uncovered and Exploited by the USPS

By Troy | calgary, Copywriting, Direct Mail, Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, Leads Generation, Marketing on the web, Neighborhood Marketing, Twitter, Wacky marketing ideas

17 Comments

I have long been preaching the power of using direct mail to complement your online marketing efforts.

Why?

Because ‘everyone’ is NOT online.

Because ‘everyone’ do NOT prefer email to print mail.

Because ‘everyone’ is not on Facebook and Twitter.

There is a huge opportunity to leverage the dinosaurs we call our postal service into your marketing.

And the United States Postal System just figured out one of Canada Post’s little secrets.

Yes, for many years now, astute marketers were using Unaddressed Admail in Canada. Direct to the door mail for 11.9 cents per household.

Fantastic for lead generation!

But until recently, the USPS didn’t have a service that would work like Canada Posts Unaddressed Direct Mail tools.

…Until now…

What it means to everyone is that there are now more options south of the 49th parallel.

And it also means it is TIME to get serious about using this tool.

If you need help – let me know.

If you want a webinar around this – let me know.

This is a fantastic tool for geo targeting of your prospects and clients.

Hope you are using it!!

Let me know your thoughts.

(I also have a product called Direct Mail Detox
that you will find helpful for generating QUALIFIED leads)

Troy

PS: I should also share the fact that I have seen some incredible results using this next-to-free direct mail tool. One client in a very competitive, commodity type business used a flier I did up and we used Unaddressed Admail to businesses – and got an incredible 12:1 return on their investment. Another sold a number of high end home products (average price of each piece if $800) for a whopping $300 investment in mailing and postal services.

This is a great way to find leads and make sales. Definitely worth your time to test.

Jun

Thoughts on Groupon and all the clones

By Troy | Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, Leads Generation, Main Content, Success

1 Comment

I had a client of mine email this question.

There are some solid lessons in my reply – whether or not you plan on using this type of service – the answer applies for ALL leads.

Question: > What is your opinion on Swarmjam, Groupon, and sites like that? I have been approached by some of them and (competitor #1), (competitor #2), and (competitor #3), have run campaigns with them. Thank you.

My answer…

Hi Ghislaine, I think they are good for one thing only (which is why they will never work for most businesses).

Leads.

You won’t make money (doubtfully anyhow) off the promotion with them.

You may get hundreds of people in the door – but they will usually be at break even or a loss for you.

BUT, if you have a system in place to get them back… then it can work.

Most people assume that buyers from all these Groupon type deals will come back to buy more after the initial discount deal.

But Groupon type buyers typically go on looking for the next great deal.

And they never hear back from the last company they bought from anyhow… so time to move on to the next 80% off deal.

But if you have a system in place to get them back at a smaller discount the next time.

Then a system in place to get them buying again – at regular price. THEN you can make money.

But you know as well as I do – most businesses have ZERO system in place for this.

If you have yours in place – then you will be ok (as long as you get in front of them regularly to get them back).

You can make money with these – but only when you get them back to buy more and more often, without the huge discount you gave them in the first place).

My thoughts anyhow.

Troy

So, the questions for you are…

…what are you you willing to PAY for a lead (this type of lead generation is usually at break even or a loss).

…what SYSTEMS do you have in place to guarantee a certain percentage comes back to buy more from you?

If you don’t know those, don’t bother with Groupon and the clones. You WILL lose money and never get it back.

In my own opinion, Troy

PS: Don’t believe me?

Lets say typical purchase if $50 at list price. $25 is margin.

Groupon and clones want you to discount by at LEAST 50%.

Now you are at break even.

BUT, you still haven’t PAID Groupon and clones – they will want at LEAST 10% of sales.

So you sell 1,000 ‘deals’

$25,000 revenues – alright!
Minus $2,500 to Groupon clones.
Leftover = $22,500

BUT it cost you $25,000 to create the products you are selling.

It cost you $2,500 to bring in 1,000 new potential repeat buyers. Which is $2.50 per ‘lead’ – which is actually quite reasonable IF you know how to get them back to buy more, at higher margins next time.

Make sense?

So what is your system to get them back to buy more, at higher margins?

May