Have you seen the JK Wedding Dance video on Youtube? Once the video went viral, it was featured on many TV shows and internet outlets. Use these 10 tips to gain the same sort of success for your business through viral video marketing.

Video Marketing – Taking a Message Viral

1. One of a Kind – When you are the only one doing something eye catching, people will stop and take notice, and then they will tell their friends. You have to seize the moment and ride it for all that it is worth though, because if you really have a good idea, someone will imitate you soon enough.

2. Shocking – It is fine to create a one of a kind message, but it has to get someone?People will be interested if you shock them (tastefully). Don’t be conservative–keep your video tasteful while shocking your viewers at the same time.

3. Speak English – While it is great that you and all of your buddies in the industry speak your own language, but very likely your customer do not, so do not speak in shorthand, speak English.

4. Be Genuine – You can try to be cool, and that guarantees that you will not be. Be genuine, and if what you created is good, it will become cool on its own.

5. Be Brief – Most viral videos go straight to the point. You get a nice little jolt that may be funny or shocking, but it is over almost before it has begun. Your viral video should barely be an interruption to the person watching it.

6. Be Funny – Laughter is one of the most powerful medicines known to man. It makes you feel good. People will not only enjoy your video message, but the will be eager to pass it along as well.

7. Shoot for the Stars – Rather than do something outrageous, do something over the top outrageous. Do something so surprising, so funny, so shocking, that people will have to watch your video just because they cannot believe their ears.

8. Be a Little Rough – Keep the quality of your video a little homemade looking. By not having your video look like a commercial, people will think that they have found a gem. Everyone loves to be the first one to discover something outrageous, so having your video look homemade lets them stumble upon a gem.

9. Be True to your Brand – While you are concentrating on being shocking and amazing, do remember that you have a reason for making the video, and that is to promote your business or product. So while you need to be amazing in your video, you also need to make your point and make it memorable.

10. Keep It Lively – Make sure that your video is full of action. Keep the talk to a minimum, and keep things moving. Make sure that you have enough dialogue so your audience can easily understand your point, and then keep thing moving.

These tips will help your video go viral, and once that happens everyone will know about your business.

Anton Pearce specializes in helping you to use internet marketing to get all the clients you need for your practice. Sign up for his highly acclaimed and miraculously free ezine and find out how to turn your website into an automated new client or patient referral generating machine.

]]> http://wiseguymarketing.com/guerrilla-marketing/leverage-viral-video-marketing-to-benefit-your-business/feed/ 0 http://wiseguymarketing.com/guerrilla-marketing/drive-more-traffic-to-your-website-using-an-easy-and-free-tell-a-friend-script/ http://wiseguymarketing.com/guerrilla-marketing/drive-more-traffic-to-your-website-using-an-easy-and-free-tell-a-friend-script/#comments Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:56:26 +0000 admin http://wiseguymarketing.com/?p=271

The biggest issue facing any business today is how to drive more traffic to the company website. But not just more traffic, but more qualified traffic. Qualified meaning that they are more likely to buy once they get there. There are tons of books and articles out there that provide multiple strategies some – harder to implement then others.

This article is going to focus on one of the easiest to implement and one that’s free! I will be showing you how to make use of a tell-a-friend script to make your website become more viral. Viral marketing makes use of the tendency of a person to share something to find informative, entertaining or amazing.

A tell a friend script is a simple programming script that you can literally “cut and paste” into your website. Tell a friend scripts can be placed anywhere on your site. I place it in my navigation bar so that it appears on every page. You just want to be sure that it is easy to see so that a person can easily click on it to send the information they find interesting to any of his friends or his family members.

To see an real life example of 2 types of tell-a friend scripts go to www.StreetSmartSalesAndMarketing.com. Check out the side and bottom navigation bars and click on the Tell a Friend/Share This button.

The basic concept of a tell a friend script is a script wherein a person may input his name, e-mail address, the recipient’s e-mail address and send the media to the intended recipient much like an e-mail with an attachment. As the recipient receives the e-mail he wouldn’t think of the mail a spam mail because he would see the sender’s name as someone he or she knows and trust.

Tell a friend script eliminates greatly the chances of being blocked because they use the information inputted by the sender. This allows for wider spreading of this marketing method. It can be quite sneaky but it is very effective.

With the e-mail sent and opened the sent media will either be read, viewed or played. Also along with the mail would be a brief description of the company or site that sponsors the media sent. This allows for the introduction of either the site, company name or its products. The along with it is another tell a friend script.

Then the process begins again. As more people use the tell a friend script, more and more people will know of the existence of the sponsoring company or site. People who read the ads inside the mail who liked what they see would go and click on the link and visit the site. This drives traffic into the site resulting to great number of potential customers.

A tell a friend script is very simple and does not require a complicated method of programming. In fact, you can copy paste a script and simply put it on an intended page. Finding one is even simpler. All you have to do is go to a search engine and type in the search box “tell a friend script” then press enter or click go.

In the search results page you will see many links that will direct you to a site where you can get a tell a friend script. It would just be a simple matter of looking and searching for the script and copying it to your intended web page.

To get you started you can check out SocialTwist.com or ShareThis.com. The cool thing about these 2 services is they also let the website visitor share your website though social bookmarking websites like Digg, Delicious and Stumbleupon just to name a few.

With a tell a friend script viral marketing strategy you can drive traffic into your site which could potentially spell profits. This is a simple harmless script that offers great benefits for low cost paired with great creativity and foresight.

To learn more secrets on how to drive more traffic, convert more visitors to paying customers and get found faster by the search engines pick up a free copy of “7 Steps to Website Success” Just go to www.WebsiteMakeoverASAP.com

Newsletters allow you to impress your subscribers. It can show your expertise and knowledge about the topic at hand and the many benefits you can offer them. When you impress people, they will become potential customers and another great thing is that they can recommend you to their friends, colleagues and family. All of them could very well be customers in the future.

Providing a newsletter for your opt-in list subscribers provides many benefits in terms of driving traffic into your site as well as boosting the sales and profits of your site and company. This is a marketing ploy that will not hugely dent your marketing budget and will not also require many man-hours in developing this project.

With a newsletter, you can inform the public about your company and products as well as services. You can keep them posted and updated about what’s going-on with your company as well as many of your promotions and offerings. With these, you keep on reminding your subscribers that you are still here and is willing to offer them good deals and services.

If you do not have a newsletter or publishing one for your site, then you may have to consider about researching and be well informed on how to publish one. It is not as easy as it seems but if and when you get the right idea and process, it will be smooth sailing from there on. Try to take the time to learn what you need to learn and get that newsletter ready and good to attract subscribers to your newsletter as well as traffic to your site.

In the next few paragraphs, I will provide you with some things to reflect on when you decide to start your own newsletter for your site. Here are five things to consider when publishing a newsletter.

1) Make sure that the content of your newsletter pertains to and closely associated with your business or the theme of your site. Do not dwell too far on what could be regarded as your field of expertise. You have started a site and your theme for your site will always be something you are knowledgeable about. For example; if you have a site that sells auto car parts, your newsletter must contain articles or content like photos that pertain to cars, auto parts and such. You may also include content about your company and your staff.

Remember that visitors of a certain site are there because they are interested in what the site has to offer. If they sign up for an opt-in list or for a newsletter this means that they want to be updated for that certain theme or subject. Be sure that when you publish your newsletter you are providing for the need of the subscriber as well as their interests.

2) Ensure that you have well written, information riddled and content rich articles. You articles will be the body of your newsletter and that they should be able to excite your readers as well as provide information. Articles should be well written and checked for errors such as spelling and grammatical errors for it to look professional and believable. The trust of your client to you and newsletter is at stake here.

3) Fact-check your articles. Make sure that you provide true facts and figures so that your reputation as an expert and knowledgeable in that field is not questioned. If you lose the trust of your subscribers these may persuade them to unsubscribe to your newsletter. You will lose many potential sales this way.

4) Provide fresh and new articles that can provide new information to your subscribers. If you publish stale and old news in your newsletter, there is a tendency that people or your subscribers already have read and known about them. This will lose their interest in your newsletter and they wont get to read what is most important, your ads. They may not open or read any of your succeeding newsletters losing your intention in writing and publishing newsletters, to get them to visit your site and make a purchase.

5) Never use copyrighted materials such as photos and articles. This is outright plagiarism, you may get into a lot of trouble for this. You can lose your business and get sued over copyright infringement. If you do not have the time to write your own articles, there are many willing and able professional article writers that can do it for you for a reasonable fee. All your investment in writing and publishing articles will be well worth it when you see your list build up and your traffic increasing.

6) Be sure to offer unique ways to get visitors to your website to opt-in to your newsletter. Offering a free special report available for immediate download can be very effective. I offer a free Website Makeover Analysis Quiz to get some of my visitors to opt-in

By the way for those companies that have a retail or store location, publishing an online newsletter is a great way to help in your local business marketing efforts.

Many small- to medium-sized businesses fail due to a lack of an effective marketing and sales program. Entrepreneurs may be very good at their core business, but know very little about marketing. Certain people suffer from the theory espoused by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.” They are innocently caught up in a love for their own products or services and believe the world will indeed beat a path to their door when prospects hear about the fantastic new product. This attitude is wrong, dangerous, and not in line with the practices of successful B2B marketers. In fact, more often than not, superior marketing beats a superior product.

Another reason for failure is that an effective marketing campaign is hard work. Since marketing is probably not what motivated the entrepreneur to open his or her business, it receives less priority than product development and other tasks. Marketing also often comes up short when scarce funds are allocated. Sadly, there are start-up companies that spend tens of thousands of dollars on furniture and equipment, while complaining that there is nothing left for marketing.

New companies also make a mistake by hiring expensive advertising agencies that are incapable of cost-effective, low-budget marketing. Or they hire marketing and sales talent from big companies, and these people are often clueless about how to get results on a limited budget. So if you are in a small company, be careful about hiring the hotshot from a big company to come solve your problems. It often doesn’t work. This is not to say that everyone from a big company is incapable of being effective with a smaller budget-some are great no matter the company size.

Small to medium businesses and start-ups face two major obstacles not shared by larger, entrenched companies. First, if you happen to be a small fish in a large pond, you will be confronted by competitors with much larger advertising and marketing budgets. Second, you may have to spend a larger percentage of your revenues on marketing than older, established organizations.

Given the reality of this situation, you need to squeeze as much efficiency as possible out of every dollar. Be assured that you can do a lot on a limited budget, and expensive does not always mean better. I’ve often used limited-budget strategies to beat the big players and you can do the same. And the lessons you learn by doing it the frugal way will serve you well, no matter how successful you become, or how far your marketing budget expands. Here are a collection of small budget strategies and tactics you can use to beat the big guys:

Small Budget Website Strategies:
1. Don’t overbuild your Website. There are ways to create an impressive site using less-complex open source or template approaches.
2. If possible, have an easy-to-remember Website address that relates to what your company does.
3. List your Web address (URL) on all of your corporate materials.
4. Make sure your Website is optimized for organic search terms. This is a low-cost strategy that will make you much easier to find.
5. Try narrowly focused low-cost pay per click search terms.
6. Give some information away for free to increase your Website stickiness.
7. Create many links with other sites to increase your search engine visibility.
8. Refresh your content often. Do not let the site go stale.

Small Budget Social Media Strategies:
1. Start your own blog and comment on other blogs.
2. Always list your Web address on your blog postings and any electronic communication.
3. Leverage LinkedIn and other networking sites.
4. Use Twitter to find relevant posts and prospects.
5. Be controversial (but not too controversial) to attract attention.
6. Choose a niche where you can be an expert.
7. Write articles and get them published in online media.
8. Focus on one or two social media outlets. This concentrated attention will bring more attention than throwing your efforts at five or six outlets.

Small Budget Email Strategies:
1. Work hard to build your email prospect file of opt-in names. This will be a gold mine of low-cost leads and sales.
2. Include a promotional message and your Website address as part of your standard email signature.
3. Provide links to valuable information in your emails, not just product pitches.
4. Make your emails interesting and/or unusual.
5. Run your email copy through a spam detection tool like EmailExam, Acxiom Digital, or Lyris ContentChecker to ensure your emails will not be caught in the spam filters.
6. Have an easy opt-out process. You do not want to keep sending emails to people who want to be removed from your list.

Small Budget Direct Marketing Strategies:
1. Target your lists more effectively by using demographics, psychographics, and some of the other list segmenting tools available. The object is to mail fewer packages and achieve greater response.
2. Test your mailing and telemarketing in small quantities before committing large sums to full-blown programs. Equally important, use the information you learn on every program to make the next work better.
3. Try a postcard mailer. The production costs are low, the first-class postage is less expensive than letter mail, and they pull very well. You can drive prospects to a Web form or toll-free telephone number.
4. Cut back on four-color process direct mail packages. Unless you sell food, magazines, resort properties, or other products requiring excellent graphic reproduction, you can probably pull as much response using two-color printing.
5. Consider mailing with third-class postage instead of first-class. Depending on whether you presort the file, this will save you a great amount of money, and most prospects will not notice the difference. The exception is with time-sensitive offers, since third-class mail can take a week longer to arrive than first-class.
6. If you mail to large numbers on a national basis, or send highly concentrated mailings into local or regional areas, use postal pre-sorting to lower postage costs.

More Cost-Cutting Ideas:
1. If you are a small company (a flea), find a big company (a dog) to partner with. This will make it much easier for you to sell to bigger companies.
2. Read the chapter on public relations carefully and begin carrying out its advice. PR is a low-effort, high-reward vehicle that is often under-utilized by small-budget marketers.
3. Be persistent. Remember the eight times rule: You don’t have to spend a lot of money on each communication, but you must repeat your message up to eight times to gain prospect awareness.
4. Write handwritten personal notes to prospects and customers. They are cheap but make a big impact.
5. Ask for referrals. They are much easier to sell, at lower cost.
6. Utilize experts. An expert’s advice will cost you something in the short term, but can save you money and aggravation in the long term.
7. List your primary products and services on your stationery and business card, or anything else you give to potential buyers.
8. Since consistency is vital for those with small budgets, make sure every one of your marketing efforts supports and reinforces your unique selling proposition (USP).
9. Sharpen your bargaining skills. Media outlets are hungry for business and many have unsold inventory. Use this to your advantage by negotiating aggressively.

One other important principle to practice is leverage. Try to create content once and use it in multiple marketing scenarios. This is less expensive and time-consuming, and the consistency of message is important.

Christopher Ryan is a noted expert in B2B marketing. Chris is founder and President of Fusion Marketing Partners and was formerly a senior marketing executive at companies like Sybase, PeopleSoft and Group 1 Software. You can buy Mr. Ryans latest book, How to Create an Unstoppable Marketing and Sales Machine, at Amazon.com or at Get the Book.

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- Drive More Traffic, Get More Leads, Generate More Referrals and Increase Sales Using the Awesome Power of Social Media and Video Marketing

- How to Automate Your Social Media Marketing Efforts

- Simple Strategies Designed to Get Your Website Ready to Capture More Leads and Increase Sales

- How to Generate Massive Amounts of Traffic to Your Website

If you’re really serious about growing your business then you must attend this workshop.

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Imagine what your business would be like if you could generate 50-500 qualified leads a month from your website.  If it isn’t doing that now and doing it on a consistent basis then it’s not working hard enough.  Unfortunately very few websites accomplish that goal.  Why?  Because many small business websites were created by designers, friends, relatives or “techies” not marketers. 

Your website should be more than just an online brochure, it should be a lead generating machine!  Having a fancy website with pretty graphics or fancy flash videos might make you feel good, but if it doesn’t generate leads or get your visitor to take action, then you need to make some changes; and the sooner, the better.

When I do Website Makeovers for my clients, I suggest dozens of easy to implement strategies that can turn website visitors into qualified leads quickly and easily.  And most of these strategies do not require you to know any special website coding.

Here are 6 secrets to get you started -

Secret # 1 – Offer a Free Special Report

Prospects visit your website for one main reason – to get information they can use to make their buying decision.  That’s why the first secret is to give away free, relevant and helpful information. 

Well, not totally for free.  Offer visitors interesting special reports or an e-mail course in exchange for their name and e-mail address.  These special reports will not only educate your prospect, but also endear them to you because you are trying to help them make an educated buying decision.

Special Report titles like “12 Critical Questions You Must Ask Before You Buy an ATV,” will attract the attention you want because visitors are curious to know what those 12 critical questions are.  Offering special reports like this will help improve your chances of getting “opt-ins” or people who are willing to give their contact information.  Once you have their contact information you will be able to send your marketing message to them again and again at virtually no cost.

Secret # 2 – The Power of Testimonials

Consumers like to buy; they just don’t like to be sold.  So why not let your current customers do the selling for you using testimonials.  Remember, testimonials are not ads; they are third party endorsements, which lend credibility to your claims which makes the buying and selling process easier for everyone.  That’s the power of good testimonials.

While many websites do use testimonials, most make the mistake of placing them all on one page titled, “Testimonials.”  That is underutilizing an extremely powerful tool at your disposal.  Instead, sprinkle your testimonials all over you site including your home page, guarantee section, in the products and services area, etc.  Even using them as headlines can very be effective in capturing attention.

Secret # 3 – About Us Page – One of the Most Visited Pages on Your Site

Create an “About Us page.  In the final analysis, people don’t buy from companies, they buy from people.  Becoming a “real person” on your “about us” page, humanizes you, your company and your website.  Tell your visitors about how your business began, how it has grown from a 2-person office to over 50 people in just 5 years by providing excellent customer service.  In many cases, the “about us” section is one of the most visited pages on your site.  Make it work harder for you.  Adding your photo or a picture of your office, customer service department, your fleet of service trucks, etc. can really help you connect with your visitor.

Secret # 4 – Add an Audio Message to Important Sections of Your Website

Hearing the owner/manager’s voice reviewing your no-risk money back guarantee or how he/she is available to answer questions, will help build trust and rapport with your visitors.  Audio software programs are very inexpensive and easy to use and install even for novices.  To see and hear an effective way to use audio on your website, go to http://www.streetsmartsalesandmarketing.com/MinuteStrategies.htm

Secret # 5  – Creating a Unique Selling Proposition – (USP)

Your website should clearly explain how your company is different from the competition and needs to answer the question – Why should I buy from you?  Old phrases such as “service with a smile” or “satisfaction guaranteed” don’t impress people anymore.  You need to make your unique competitive advantage clear and concise and your visitors need to see it as quickly as possible.  Don’t bury it somewhere, put it right on the home page.

Secret # 6 – Use “Tell-A-Friend” Scripts

Make sure you add a “tell-a-friend script” to your website or on-line newsletter that let’s the reader forward the web page on to others.  Many of the scripts are free, easy to install and let you get a copy of the e-mail address they send to.  Now you have another e-mail address and prospect to market to.

As you can see, just making a few minor changes to your website can increase your chances of gaining more qualified leads (opt-ins) and make the visit a much better experience for your visitor. To learn how get your own in-depth website makeover analysis go to http://www.streetsmartsalesandmarketing.com/WebsiteMakeover.htm

No matter what you sell, how high the retail price, what
time of year or how bad the economy is, people are still
buying – Houses, Cars, Boats, Seminars, Kitchens, Pools,
Insurance policies, etc.

Are they buying as many as last year.  Maybe not.   Are
they buying less expensive options than they used to?
Could be.  Are there fewer buyers on the market right
now?  Probably – so what!

I have purchased 9 homes in my life.  Two of these homes
I bought on the 24-25th of December.   Who the heck buys
homes on Christmas or Christmas Eve? Not as many as the
weeks before or the weeks after Christmas, but homes still
get sold then.  I even bought a home when mortgage rates
were over 12%!

Despite what you’ve heard or read, people ARE still buying.
Your job is to stop justifying why your sales are flat or
down and find a way to get those people to buy from you.
Now is NOT the time to give into what I call “the down
disease” – (everyone is down in sales so I don’t feel so
bad that my sales are down too).

In times like these, your competitors will slow down or
even eliminate some or all of their marketing efforts.
This creates an opportunity for you to capture their
customers if you already have systems in place to do so.

Your job is to take advantage of this opportunity and
find those prospects that ARE ready, willing and able
to buy and make sure that they buy from you, not your
competition.  Sounds logical and simple enough.  But
if it was that simple, wouldn’t more companies be doing
it?

The sad truth is that many small businesses continue to
do what they’ve always done in the past regardless of
the mediocre results they are now getting.

You Don’t Necessarily Need More Marketing Money to Increase Sales

Instead, it’s your ability to use the marketing money
and resources you already have more effectively.  What
it really comes down to is not having sales generating
systems in place that they can use to get a predictable
and constant stream of sales regardless of what is
going on around the block or around the world.

These systems can do more to increase your sales than
just about anything else you could invest in.  Why?
Because it concentrates on the one thing that ALL
businesses can’t get enough of…new customers.
Doesn’t that make sense?

Systems are what make so many franchises successful.
Why do you think McDonalds®, Dunkin Donuts® and
Kinko’s® stores and franchises are so successful?
Because they have, over time, developed systems
that work.

Make no mistake about it, people who buy a franchise
aren’t buying hamburgers, donuts or copy machines,
they’re buying a program that has proven the test of
time, they are buying a successful system.

That’s why the most successful franchises cost so
much…because if you do what they tell you to do,
f you “connect the dots”, if you “paint by their
numbers”, your odds of success go up dramatically.

What Type of Sales Generating Systems Do You Have in Your Business?

Listed below are 4 easy-to-implement systems that
you can introduce into your business fairly easily.

1 – Website Lead Capture System

One of the most effective lead-capture systems
is the humble newsletter. Electronic newsletters
(e-Zines) are much like paper-based newsletters in
that they inform, entertain, and make product or
service recommendations. The difference is that
you can send an electronic newsletter instantly to
thousands of people with the simple push of a
button for almost no cost whatsoever.  It’s truly
amazing.

Of course you need people to send your newsletter
to so you should start collecting the email addresses
of your prospects and clients today.  A surefire
way to persuade a prospect to share their personal
email address with you is to offer them a low cost
premium such as a free report about how to buy a
your product or service.

The key to making electronic newsletters work is
to write, in a personal voice, as though you were
talking to your prospect or customer face-to-face.
Also, provide interesting and useful content so
that your reader looks forward to receiving your
newsletter.  Be consistent.  Send your newsletter
on a bi-weekly basis, such as the 1st and 15th
of every month.

If you want all the fuss taken out of the
newsletter process you can use an all-in-one tool
such as http://www.1ShoppingCart.com (that’s what
I use) or ConstantContact.com or Aweber.com.
For a lower cost option you can have a newsletter
template designed for you at e-Lance and then
use an online autoresponder service such as
Aweber.com or with desktop software such as
Gammadyne.com. 

2 – Telephone Lead Capture System

How would you like to capture the name and address
of all your lead sources and know exactly where
they all came from?  Capturing this information
would allow you to do follow up marketing with
your prospects and compute the exact return-on
-investment of each of your marketing and
advertising campaigns. Telephone hotlines allow
you to do just that – and more. 

A telephone hotline is simply a recorded telephone
message that can either, (1) ask for and record a
prospect’s contact information that can later be
transcribed, (2) play back a pre-recorded educational
or sales message, or (3) allow the caller to be
directly transferred to a live person after
listening to a message.

Most telephone hotlines use toll-free telephone
numbers that are rented to your business on a
monthly basis.  You’ll also receive multiple
extension numbers with “message boxes” that can
play different messages depending on the marketing
campaign. I use http://www.AutomateMarketingSolutions.com
for my telephone hotline services.

Imagine offering an interesting free report
(or audio / video) in your advertising by asking the
prospect to simply call your toll-free number
and a specific extension number to request your
information product. The prospect calls up the
advertised phone number with its unique extension
number and then requests the report by leaving
their name and address. Their name and address
gets transcribed that night, entered into an MS
Excel spreadsheet, and then sent to you in the
morning ready for you to follow up on. 

At the end of the month you go online, click a
button, and a report spits out the exact source
of each of your leads and when they came in.
Now you have some powerful information that will
allow you to precisely track the return on each
marketing campaign.

3 – Internet Pay-Per-Click Advertising System

More and more people are going to the Internet
to search for big ticket product product information
before they decide to buy.  It’s critical to be
the first company that your prospect finds in their
search. Pay-per-click advertising allows you to
do that in a low risk way. Let me explain.

Pay-per-click advertising programs such as Yahoo
and Google’s Adwords program allow you to bid for
search engine placement.  If you’ve ever searched
for something in Google and saw those text ads on
the right side of the screen you’ve seen Google
Adwords.  With Google AdWords or Yahoo you create
your own ads, choose keywords to match your ads to
your audience and pay only when someone clicks on
them.

For instance, suppose you are a power sports dealer
in Chicago.  You might bid on the keywords “Chicago”
and “motorcycle,” which is a likely keyword
combination for a Chicago resident looking for a
motorcycle.  You may only have to pay $.10 per
click to be at the top of the search engines. In less
than one hour any business can launch their
 own pay-per-click Internet advertising program.

4 – Follow-Up Marketing System
Now that you’ve generated interest and prospects
are coming to your website or responding to your
advertising, you need an effective lead follow up
system. In the previous paragraph I referred to an
“autoresponder service” and now it’s time to learn
what they are and why they’re important.  An
autoresponder service automatically sends multiple
email messages that you create on a scheduled basis
that you define.

For instance, imagine that you offered a free 6-part
email course on your website titled, “How to Select
the Perfect Home Remodeler.”  After your website visitor
signed up to receive your email course by sharing
their email address with you, your autoresponder
service would automatically send them one email
containing your course content every other day over
the next 12 days.

Every other day your prospect would automatically
receive a useful tip or technique for selecting the
right home remodeler, without any manual intervention
from you. Included in each day’s tip could be an
offer to visit your website to take advantage
of a special offer or to visit your store to
receive a personalized educational session.

There’s no magic to how many emails you can set up
in your autoresponder system. I know of one pool
builder who has over six months of weekly emails
pre-written and set up to automatically be sent
in his autoresponder system.  Each email has a unique
teaser that drives prospects back to their website. 

For instance, one email says, “Click here to see
one of the most unique pool ever built.”
The link then takes the reader to a page with a
beautiful pool on it and and also includes a
story about some of the problems that other 
pool owners encounter and how this new pool
overcame those issues.  It may also include
a testimonial from the prospect raving about the
pool.  It’s quite powerful. 

One last thought, for sales or marketing system
to be effective it must:
1. Be quick to get started, easy to implement,
   and simple to maintain
2. Leverage all your other sales and marketing
   efforts and be capable of producing
   fast results
3. Continue to produce good results for long
   periods of time – it must be “viral”

The 3 systems I’ve shown you certainly meet these
3 criteria.  Now go out there and start systemizing.
If Ronald McDonald can do it, so can you!
 
To your continued success,
 
David Carleton
President, Street Smart Sales And Marketing

http://www.StreetSmartSalesAndMarketing.com

Secret #1 – Create an image of your final business goal and write it down.

The bottom line here is that if you haven’t got a final destination or goal, it’s hard to plot a course. So take the time to create an image of your business goal and create a plan to get there.

All great athletes and successful business people, visualize their final destination. Take time to visualize and keep your perspective.

Also, like they say, a goal not written is only a wish.  For some reason, if we write it, it’s more real and we can stay better focused. Before we decide to revise or adapt our goal, we need to start with something to expand upon if the need arises.

Secret #2 – Know your market and your competition. 

You may have a brilliant business idea.  But if you don’t spend some time researching your market, which includes researching your competition, then you will most likely have a business doomed for failure.

Your idea may be brilliant, but it may need some important tweeks that you will only realize and resolve when you are doing your research to understand your market.

Secret #3 – Stay focused on one dream at a time.

Sometimes as we get excited about our dream, other business ideas may pop into our head.  Write the ideas down in a “To Do” file, and leave them alone until you have COMPLETED your current business effort and it is producing good returns.

Many people get distracted with other opportunities and ideas and never complete one dream, this is very costly and in many instances financially counter productive.

Secret #4 – Remember, no man is an island, you need others to help compliment your business plan.

Networking with others can be very valuable in getting your name out there, but more importantly, you may gain some great insights and strategies to help grow your business faster.

Additionally, hire and develop employees that you can delegate assignments to in areas that you are weak or not as interested in performing.  Then you can keep yourself focused on things that are in line with your natural talents.  Make efforts to enhance your talents to become even more effective.

Secret #5 – Keep yourself from becoming stagnant by keeping yourself educated

The wise entrepreneur will reduce the amount of time it takes to learn the necessary elements in their business by talking with and gleaning insights from those at the top of their market. Learn from someone with a proven success record and then you don’t have to learn from trial and error.  Take courses, read books and be open to new ideas.

Secret #6 – Take one day at a time and don’t allow yourself to be overwhelmed with the magnitude or your goal or challenges.

Although you need to have long-term goals and strategies, your days can only be productive if you focus on one step at a time.  Then you can do a great job on that effort and easily progress to the next step (and bring your sanity along with you too.)

Secret #7 – Leverage your time and resources by implementing systems throughout your business

Why do you think McDonalds®, Dunkin Donuts® and other franchises are so successful?  Because they have, over time, developed systems that work.

Make no mistake about it, people who buy a franchise aren’t buying hamburgers or donuts, they’re buying a program that has proven the test of time, they are buying a successful system.

That’s why the most successful franchises cost so much…because if you do what they tell you to do, if you “connect the dots”, if you “paint by their numbers”, your odds of success go up dramatically.

There are obviously more than just 7 “secrets” to business success, but if you follow these you’ll be way ahead of most of your competitors.

To your continued success,
 
David Carleton
President, Street Smart Sales And Marketing
http://www.StreetSmartSalesAndMarketing.com

Testimonials are one of the most powerful yet under-utilized and overlooked tools you can apply to your marketing efforts.  They are neutral 3rd party endorsements.  They build trust, get attention and overcome skepticism on even the toughest buyers. 

Customers that give you great testimonials are also candidates to give you great referrals and end up becoming more loyal to your business.  By the way, testimonials should always be about how great your company is, how great the buying experience was or how wonderful your customer service was.  I do not recommend that testimonials are “product or brand specific” since you may at some point change brands.

Here are four tips for getting more/better testimonials:
1. After you deliver your product or provide your service, tell the client that you’ll be sending them their “New Customer Gift Basket,” and that you’ll be asking them to fill out and return a postage-paid testimonial survey page that you’re including.  90% of the clients that get your new client gift basket will feel obligated to return a simple testimonial – it’s just human nature.
2. Whenever someone mentions something positive about their buying experience, ask them if they’d mind sending it to you via e-mail.  If you don’t hear from them in a few days, send them an e-mail, thanking them for their comments and ask them to just hit “reply” to add their testimonial.

3. Make it easy as possible for your customers to give you a testimonial.  Instead of making a customer write out his/her testimonial, why not use a Testimonial Hotline.  All they have to do is call a toll free number and just talk.  You can transcribe it later. (Here’s a real example: 800-391-6309 x 6300). 

4. Want to get the best testimonials possible?  Try this…write out what you would consider to be a great testimonial and then turn it into a testimonial questionnaire.  Then give the questionnaire to your customers in a postage paid envelope and ask them to return it.  Be sure to include areas that specifically address your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and help substantiate your company claims.

Once you gather your testimonials, create a “Wall of Fame” in your store or office where you can post them all for perspective clients to see.  Make testimonials a standard part of your product or service offering and presentations.  Offer prospective clients and customers a list of testimonials with specific names and phone numbers to read, review and even call at their leisure.

Getting and using testimonials like this will undoubtedly help you close more sales.

If you want a free copy of my Special Report 7 Street Secrets to Getting More Powerful Testimonials, just go to http://www.StreetSmartSalesAndMarketing.com/StreetSmartTestimonials.pdf

To your continued success,
 
David Carleton
President, Street Smart Sales And Marketing
http://www.StreetSmartSalesAndMarketing.com