Statistics show that you will lose 10-17% of your customers each month if you don’t constantly stay in touch with them.

Can your business afford to lose that many customers? I didn’t think so.

Let’s look at why this happens?

Two huge reasons are:

1. The customer thinks your company doesn’t really care about keeping them as a customer. (which isn’t really true)
2. Because they never hear from you, they won’t remember you when they need your services, or maybe even think you went out of business.

Customers like to feel important, and do like to periodically hear from you.

So how can you, as a business professional, prevent a continuous exodus of your customers that will ultimately go to your competitor?

It’s actually easy. Just find an economical way to continually keep in touch with them!

There’s many ways such as monthly newsletters, holiday cards, flyers promoting special events, thank you cards, and auto-responders.

Here are just a few of the benefits of using online auto-responders.

1. They are economical because they use opt-in email to send your message.
2. Auto-responders are relatively easy to set up
3. After you set it up, you can keep in constant touch with customers automatically at pre-determined intervals
4. Your customers will think you care, and you will be in their minds when they need your services again.
5. You can track open rates and clicks so you know which emails and links are most effective, putting more money in your pocket.

The service I use on each of my own websites is Aweber. You can check out their service for free for 3 months by clicking here.

To get more information about this post, marketing advice, or about my sales copywriting services, e-mail me or call me at 603-686-5140.

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services

There are quite a few free and low-cost ways to generate leads for your local business on the internet, even if you don’t have a website. (Though I do highly recommend having one)

I’m going to quickly share a couple of the ones I’ve used.

The best part is: Using these techniques doesn’t cost you a cent, and they are relatively painless to set up, even if you don’t have a ton of computer experience.

Google Maps and Local Business Center:

If you’ve ever searched Google to find the website of a local business, you may have seen this in action. Say you are looking for some marketing advice and you live in Stratham, NH.  You would type “marketing stratham nh” and you’ll get about 10 results, including www.crestviewmarketing.com,  from Google Maps.

All you need to do is go to www.google.com/local/add and sign up to add your business for free. It takes five to ten minutes to create an account and add your specific information.  That’s it!

Rockingham County NH Business List

I signed up on this local site a few months ago and have received several leads that flowed to my website. It’s a free local business listing and if you want, you can upgrade the free listing to a paid one.

Their website is www.rockinghamcountynhbusinesslist.com.

Basically, you create an account and setup a company profile that gets attention  You can upload pictures if you want.  Like Google, it only takes a few minutes to get yourself listed.

Obviously unless you live here in NH too, you won’t use this site, but there are many other local business directories online. You’ll just need to spend time researching and finding them.

Just make sure your online profile contains a compelling and interesting Bio of yourself and business giving prospects a reason to conact you instead of your competition.

FACT:
According to a recent survey by TMP Directional Marketing, a whopping 82% of online searchers contacted a business offline, and 61% of those made purchases.

Those are some pretty startling numbers.

So what are you waiting for? Go set up some accounts and start getting found!

To get more information about this post, marketing advice, or about my sales copywriting services,  e-mail me or call me at 603-686-5140.

Merrill Clark
Website and offline copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services

There’s no question about it…

The economy is in utter turmoil, and will be for the foreseeable future, negatively affecting orders, profits and cash flow.

Most business professionals I talk with don’t seem to know what to do about it.

So what do they do?  Well, the first thing they do is slash every possible expense to the bone, and unfortunately, that usually includes advertising and marketing.

My recommendation to my clients is just the opposite. I can understand cutting costs, just not the ones that help you attract more business in the first place.

Think about this from a contrarian point of view: Most of your competitors are significantly reducing or completely freezing marketing dollars. Now, the total number of marketing messages (ads) clients are getting now are way down.

 As long as you continue to market to them during this time, you’ll have much less competition, since all they see are your ads, not your competition’s.

And if the sales copy in your ads, sales letters, postcards, and website pages is even remotely compelling, you should see increased sales while everyone else is losing their shirts, waiting for this recession to end.

If you need someone to write effective sales copy for you, email me at mclark@crestviewmarketing.comor call me at 603-686-5140.

So don’t be afraid! If your product or service is good and people still need you, tell them you’re there to serve them.

Visit Crestview Marketing Services website to get more information about this post, on website or print copywriting, or marketing consulting services

Merrill Clark
Crestview Marketing Services

Thanksgiving is over now, and what a great Thanksgiving I had.  My son came home from Iraq the day before for a 2 week leave. And let me tell you, we were sure surprised!

Anyway, now is the time for all of us to get back to work and also to work on on marketing our businesses.

Many people know they should do some marketing, whether it’s updating their website, posting articles, ads, or sending out some postcards or sales letters.

But unfortunately for them, most do absolutely nothing!  Why?  Because they feel that they have to go in all or nothing, and don’t want to start anything that will cost time or money.

This is just plain wrong.  You should do something!  Even if you just send out a few postcards a day, or write one blog post, but something is better than nothing.  With time, there will be an accumulative effect.

Here’s how I think of it after I heard this saying recently:

A very successful business owner was once asked what was his big secret to getting so many new clients was, and his answer was:

I dont know of one way to get 100 hundred new clients, but… I know of 100 ways to easliy get one new client!

Basically, what he says is to keep plugging away, doing at least one thing, no matter how small it seems, every day to promote and market yourself.  Be persistent!  It isn’t all about hitting the home run each time.

Visit my website to get more information about this post, on website or print copywriting, or marketing consulting services

The rest of this week will be incredibly hectic for me as I prepare for a 4 day copywriting and marketing seminar in Florida.

Actually, they call it a Bootcamp.  And it’s called that for a reason.  14 hour days from 7AM to 9PM each day.  Fortunately, there are short breaks between presenters to get up and stretch my legs and get a drink.

I’ve had a few friends ask me why I’m going.  It’s not cheap, you know.  Between the seminar cost, hotel, and airfare plus the cost of not doing any “real” work for 4 days, it adds up fast.  After thinking about it for a couple minutes, the answer is obvious.

Other than continuing my education and learning the secret tricks from some of the worl’d best marketing and writing minds, the biggest reason is networking.  You know, not computer networking, but people networking. I’ve already set goals to introduce myself and talk to some of these gurus between sessions. I also will be meeting other attendees, others who are there for the same reasons I am.

We seem to forget how important these new relationships really are.  Often, a simple conversation can turn into a full fledged job or new partnership of some kind.  Last year, I met 5 other people who live within 40 miles of me.  now, we stay in touch by meeting for dinner once a month and brainstormig ideas, and providing moral support for each other.

And that’s what it’s all about!

You can (and should) advertise and market yourself with online and offline methods, but you should also remember to always network yourself at trade shows and other networking events where you can meet other people that share your ideas.

So, time’s running short so I need to finish getting ready.  It will be a long 4 days, jam packed with information and meeting new friends… but it will be worth it.

Visit my website to get more information about this post, on website or print copywriting, or marketing consulting services

My wife shouted so loud that it scared me and the cats darned near to death as they bolted out of the room.

Jumping up and down like a 5 year old ripping open their Christmas presents, she screamed, “I won a $1000 gift certificate from the vacuum cleaner salesman.”

By the way, this is a true story and a little longer than usual but it shows first-hand the brilliant use of  a great marketing technique.

  Meet the friendly neighborhood Kirby dude

He was a well dressed Kirby salesman.  You know, the $2000 vacuum cleaners that will suck your heart right out of your body. After the complimentary carpet shampoo, he proceeded to give the wife a big honkin stack of green raffle tickets to fill out with a chance to win some (alot actually) free of groceries.

I still didn’t “get it”.  Why would a vacuum cleaner salesman do that?

This guy actually gave up 3 hours of his evening at my house to shampoo one of our carpets (for free, nonetheless), PLUS he knew we already had a Kirby and were not interested in spending more money for a newer model. So his chances of making a sale to her was umm…slim to to none.  But to him, that was OK.

Now, as most of us know, nothing in life is completely free.  What I found out next intrigued me.

If my wife gave him a list of 25 names and numbers of friends and relatives, he would give her these tickets with a chance to win a valuable contest.

Ahh…There was the tradeoff, giving him a list of 25 leads to contact in exchange for a good chance to win a contest.

He didn’t give a high pressure sales pitch to her at all.  He tried, of course to get her to buy a new Kirby (very low key), but he knew the low odds going in.  

So I asked him about his closing rate, and he said that on average, he closes 75% of his appointments.

Think about it… 75 percent closing rate.  Or put another way, he sells new vacuum cleaners to 3 out of every 4 appointments he goes to. 75%… I don’t know of too many other salesmen in any business that can boast that high of a closing rate.

 Here’s the valuable marketing takeaways I got from him

#1. This very personable salesman spent significant time and resources on my wife, but went away without a sale, BUT he left with a list of 25 leads to follow up on. 

#2.  Even though we were a “no sale”, he continued to be nice and professional, so if we (or my wife- she talks a lot more than I do) happen to run across someone else looking for a vacuum, guess who she would recommend?

 #3. Without acting all disappointed and unprofessional knowing he wasn’t going to get any money from us directly, he still didn’t give my wife a long, drawn out high-pressure sales pitch.  He was very low key.  He knew that a) it wouldn’t work with us and b) he got a bunch of new leads to work on.

 #4. He mentioned he gets at least 15 leads per appointment (in our case 25) no matter if the prospect buys or not.

 #5. He has learned that a sales pitch usually doesn’t work.  Most of us (me included) HATE a sales pitch.  I was actually surprised when he didn’t give one, but I guess that’s the “Kirby” way of sales.

 #6. The better option is to ALWAYS keep develop new leads to work.The more leads you have, the more sales you make!  It’s as simple as that.  You figure out the numbers.

The truth is; every kind of business or sales professional could stand to use this lead generation.

The bottom line: No leads = No Sales!

After all, if a Kirby dude can be successful selling $2000 vacuum cleaners door-to-door without a hard sales pitch, can’t you do follow the same formula to generate more leads and ultimately, more money?

Hmmm…Maybe I should become a Kirby salesman.

Visit my website to Get more information about this post, on website or print copywriting, or marketing consulting services.

How would it feel if you never had to worry about figuring out what to write about ever again?

My own answer is this:

It feels awesome, like someone lifted the burdens of the whole world off my shoulders.

I just recently finished a book that gives you so many ideas, you couldn’t possibly ever run out of topics to write about. The content and ideas in this book are invaluable and worth their weight in gold!

In reality, if you are in charge of marketing for any business, whether you own it, work there, or are a freelance copywriter or consultant, then you already know just how vital it is to constantly write relevant content.

Your website, your blog, newsletters, articles, books, whatever – this book gives you the secret formula (so simple a 5 year old could use it) to create new ideas and content…and you’ll never be at a loss for words or ideas ever again!

Roger C. Parker, brilliant consultant and best-selling author of 38 marketing and design books wrote this step-by-step book that anyone who needs to market should have on their bookshelf.

It’s titled The Content Catalyst, and you can get your very own copy right now with a deep discount if you visit his sales page below.

Pick up your copy of The Content Catalyst here!

Don’t procrastinate.  With so much valuable information, the discount will surely be gone soon! 

For more information about this post, on website or print copywriting, or marketing consulting services, please visit my website at www.crestviewmarketing.com.

Re-focus on your primary business growth strategies

Here it is on October 13th 2008, Columbus Day.

Even though it’s a federal holiday, some of us continue to work anyway.

But what are we working at?

The phone isn’t necessarily ringing off the hook. After all, many people are not working today.

If you are in retail, you’re doing just that, working in your stores.  If not, then you’re probably playing catch up with paperwork or organizing, or maybe even just reading the daily newspaper.

I find that days lke this are a great time to sit back and think about things such as your personal and business goals, plus your marketing and advertising strategies that will determine your future success.

This “thinking” time also helps me look deep inside to kind of jumpstart myself.

After all, days and opportunities like this don’t come around too often, so to me, I will take advantage of the holiday to figure out my next steps so that when things turn around, I will be in a much better position to capitalize.

There’s always so much to do during normal work days while you work for your business, it’s a nice break to think and strategize on how you’ll work at your business.

Take advantage of this great “thinking” opportunity and re-energize yourself and your future.

And if you’re not working, be sure to have an ice cold one for me!

For more information about this post, on website or print copywriting, or marketing consulting services, please visit my website at www.crestviewmarketing.com.