Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category:
One metric that every business should know is the cost to gain a new customer. This is important because it lets you determine if your marketing efforts are cost-effective or if they need to be changed. It can also let you know if you can lower (or need to increase) your prices based on the cost of making that sale.
To calculate the cost per customer, you will need to know exactly how much you spend on sales and marketing (preferably by source) and how many new and returning customers you get from each source. For example, if you spend $500 on per-click advertising and get 25 new customers and 25 returning customers (ask them during checkout how they heard of you), then your cost per customer is $10. This is great if you make an average profit of $1,000 per customer, not so good if the average profit per customer is $5.
Keeping track of cost per customer by marketing source will help you manage your marketing budget and focus your resources on the avenues that will give you the best bang for your buck!
Starting a Business? Start Here. Go Far.
The new version of Good Keywords (v3) allows you to do keyword research using Google Keywords, download the data as *.csv files, then upload it into their database. From there you can do queries and searches to help you identify high potential keywords for your business.
Now, you may be thinking that search engine optimization is not a priority for your business startup. The reality is that most people hit Google or another search engine before they hit the phone book or newspaper any other resource to find anything they need — local or otherwise. And because that is how things have changed, even if you have a small, local business, you still need to be findable in the organic search results for Google and other search engines.
This piece of free software can help you narrow down the keywords you want to focus on, give you an idea of how you stack up against your competition, and help you identify long tail keywords that will help you boost your search engine position.
Start Here. Go Far. LaunchX.com
MSNBC posted an article last week regarding the “new” home business scams using Twitter and Google (read the article here). These scams are not new, they are just extensions of the same scams we’ve been seeing for years. What is unbelievable is that they are still effective! It’s just hard to understand how people can believe that they can make thousands of dollars per month “…filling out forms and doing searches…” – basically doing nothing. Apparently these tactics are quite effective, especially for the desperate among us. Part of the hook, of course, is that these companies charge only a few dollars for the informational packet on how to get rich without working, but then charge your card monthly dues between $50 and $100…details that are not apparent in the initial order. Of course, technically these fees are disclosed, buried in the abnormally long and teency-printed Terms and Conditions page…but who reads that anyway? And, you can request a refund, but good luck getting your cash back.
The Better Business Bureau is trying to stay on top of these scammer – they mark them with “F” ratings – and the Federal Courts are closing down the worst offenders when they can. But still, thousands of Americans are offering up their bank card numbers and losing cash every day. Desperation is no excuse for stupidity…what good thing in life does anyone get without working for it? Twitter, Google, Facebook…these are all excellent tools for marketing a real business, but there is no way to make real money without having a valuable product to sell.
Want to get rich? Get ready to work. Don’t waste your hard earned cash on these ridiculous claims of easy money. Instead, put your money where it counts. Buy the tools that will actually help you plan and build a legitimate business that will give you the life you want. Entrepreneurship is the best and only way to build dramatic personal wealth, but it will be earned by your hard work and time invested.
Anyone who listens to the sportscasters, reads ESPN Mag or Sports Illustrated, or has ever watched any football movie ever made will tell you that every successful coach and player spends hours on end reviewing the game films of the competition. They do this to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their opponent. They look for the smallest details to explain how and why they are successful. They take notes, draw pictures, and replay the important parts in slow motion. Why go to all this effort? Why not just play their own game and hope for the best? Because competition is all about doing your homework and finding a way to win. If the offense is set up a certain way, the defense must be ready to respond accordingly. It’s no different for startups.
Scouting the competition is a critical aspect of any startup. You need to know who is out there doing what you do. You need to know how they do the work and what features they offer. You need to know how and where your most successful competitors are reaching their target market, and what that market thinks about the competition. If you do your homework, finding the right angle to fit your business idea into the market will be much easier and, ultimately, far more successful.
Effective marketing is at the heart of any successful startup. Never assume that your great idea will sell itself – it won’t. And the trial-and-error method of developing a marketing plan is costly and time-consuming. Study the competition. Read every advertisement, scour their websites, visit their stores. Pay attention to how they do what you want to do, and figure out how to do it better. Entrepreneurship is the world’s biggest competition – only those willing to do the work come out on top.
Start Here. Go Far. LaunchX.com
Email blasting has become an extremely popular form of online marketing. In fact, a recent study indicates that nearly 90% of all emails sent out are commercial in nature…ads from businesses to consumers. Obviously, the effectiveness of any given email blast is in question with that many flooding your target’s inbox. Still, email is an excellent communication tool when used the right way.
Marketing via email to your established customer base is still very effective. Be sure to establish some way of capturing the email addresses of your most likely customers, either through offering a freebie on your website or collecting data during sales. If your customers recognize your emails and come to expect good information or a good deal from within the message, they are more likely to open and read. But, if your emails are just fluff or are poorly written, your customers may get in the habit of deleting without reading. Don’t overload their inbox either – unless you have a legitimate purpose for sending daily emails, yours will quickly be considered spam and ignored.
Buying email lists is very popular, but like anything else, you need to be sure you are getting what you pay for (or think you are paying for). Many email lists are so overused that you are likely to get as many “Removes” as contacts from the results. Many, many small business owners have told us horror stories of spending thousands of dollars on email blast list with exactly NO sales results.
There are hundreds of email blast brokers available, and most will guarantee a certain number of opens or click-throughs. Be careful of these scams. The reason they can guarantee opens or click-throughs is because they are paying people to do so. You know all those ads that tell you how to make money on the internet just by reading your email? That’s them. Check one out at www.sendmoreinfo.com. They collect email addresses by promising to pay for each click-through, then sell that list to other brokers…who take your money without guilt.
Here’s your best bet – email only to those addresses you have collected as legitimate potential customers. And, do not evaluate your email blasts based on traffic to your website if what you really need are sales. If you buy an email list, pay attention to your analytics – most programs will tell you where people are clicking through from. If one of these pay-to-click sites is used, it will likely show up as a few of the emails that clicked through.
If you are adamant about using purchased email lists, look for opportunities through other websites or periodicals related to your industry. Like any other form of advertising, your goal is to reach your target market directly. Don’t fall for the broker scams that tell you they happen to have exactly the group of email addresses you need. Ask them how they got them, and check out the website references they offer before you spend your money. If they can’t or won’t tell you where the names come from, don’t waste your cash.
Start Here. Go Far. LaunchX.com
A recent news article out of Lubbock, Texas profiles a woman who owns and operates (with her husband) the Glazed Honey Ham Co (read the article). This small but thriving business has been in operation for 20 years, but there are a few interesting points to note for anyone looking to build a business with long-term potential.
First, the article itself was written to announce the business’s appearance on a national Food Network TV episode. The newspaper article and TV episode…all free marketing! But the odds are that the multiple volunteer positions the owners hold and their involvement in the local community allowed them to develop the relationships to get this level of exposure. It is not enough to just run your business if you want to be wildly successful. Get involved. Find issues that interest you and get on the non-profit boards. Use your power as an entrepreneur for good, and that goodwill will come back to you in spades.
Note that one of the few direct quotes from the business owner is a direct plug for the sandwich portion of the business. This interview was conducted by the local media, most likely in response to a press release put out by the Ham people. The owner took that opportunity to set a clear objective – increase local traffic for the lunch service – and likely succeeded in doing so. In addition, the business’s ability to ship ham and turkeys throughout the country is clear. In one article, this owner was able to target each of the company’s major income streams. When you have an opportunity to talk with the media, be prepared with your objective – the clear message you want to be sure reaches your market.
The final kernel to take away from this article is that perhaps the “doing what you love” advice that is so prevalent in startup how-to articles is not the absolute necessity some would have you think. It is hard to believe that this couple just loved ham so much that they couldn’t resist working with it every day for 20+ years. More likely, they saw a need in the market, planned a viable business around it, and used their experiences as accountants for other businesses to build a venture that would sustain them throughout the rest of their professional career. The owner is quoted, “We loved the idea because it was a business where people were doing something they wanted to do – they were having a party, or they were having family.” No mention of loving ham there.
The odds are that these entrepreneurs could have been equally as successful with a flower shop, a catering company, or running a bowling alley. Doing what you love is a broad notion. While you shouldn’t choose an industry or business type that you can’t stand, you also should not limit yourself to the things you do as hobbies. Serving customers who are “…doing something they wanted to do…” is actually a pretty good place to start in looking for the right business idea. More importantly, first-time entrepreneurs need to build their fundamental business skills. The business of startups is business…no matter what the day-to-day operations turn out to be.
Start here. Go far.
LaunchX.com
As any entrepreneur will tell you, the gap of time between when you are ready to sell your product and when you actually start to sell it can be agonizing. We refer to this phenomenon as the Pit of Despair. For any business that relies on the internet as the primary marketing source, this difficult time can be even more pronounced. People assume that by simply uploading their fabulous website to the internet that traffic and sales will come. In fact, posting your website without marketing it is like writing your ad copy in the sands of Death Valley – if nobody can find it to see it, it might as well not exist.
Marketing via the internet is getting more complicated every day. It is estimated that there are currently more than 100 million websites milling around out there, and you must find a way for yours to be found by your target customers. Successful internet marketing is tougher than ever, especially because we are all overloaded with marketing messages. The bulk of the top internet sites are supported solely through advertising dollars, and we are so used to seeing ads across the top and down the sides of our screens that we barely take notice. In addition, a recent study showed that 90% of all emails are spam (read: advertisements), so the typical expected open rate of cold email blasts is dropping precipitously. Your best current options for marketing your websites are to implement extensive and continuing SEO (search engine optimization) and featuring your web address on every piece of marketing material you produce. Whatever additional promotional elements you elect to pursue, keep track of your success rates in terms of cost per contact or cost per sale – if one effort isn’t paying off, try another route.
If you do everything right, it can take several months for your new website to even appear on a search engine results list, much longer to land on the first page. Plan that reality into your sales forecasts and work schedule. Don’t be discouraged…the Pit of Despair won’t last forever!
Start here. Go far. LaunchX.com
It is a common belief that once you post a good website to the internet you will have no trouble drawing customers. Many of the scammy MLM programs rely on people believing this – for a couple of grand you get their “professionally designed” website that is certain to sell itself. In fact, like any other marketing effort, you must put in the time and energy to get the word out, no matter what business you are in. With so much noise on the world wide web, it takes more perseverance than ever to do it right. Posting a website without marketing is like writing ad copy on a restaurant napkin and using it for a meal of BBQ ribs– if nobody sees it, it might as well not exist.
Every modern business should have a website, and every business owner should include the appropriate search engine optimization methods to be sure potential customers can find you. Even if you run a local storefront or service, the bulk of consumers now expect to be able to take a look at your business from the comfort of their sofas. If you are running a web-based only business, prepare for a lengthy delay between launching your website and garnering consistently high traffic numbers. SEO (search engine optimization) are the things you can do to help your website be found and ranked by the major search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.). That is, when potential customers type in the key words that should lead them to your website, you want to work to get your website as close to the top of the results list as possible. The exact formulas the search engine companies use to rank sites are very secretive and, according to most experts, change relatively frequently.
There are some factors that are assumed to be critical for SEO, such as using your company’s key words relatively frequently within your website, having multiple pages within the site, and having links back to your site on other websites. However, the search engines include tools to keep cheaters from exploiting the rules, so be careful about using ideas that are designed to “fool” the search engines into thinking you have more pages or links than you actually do. Instead, add relevant free content to your site – the more value to your target market the better – and trade links with your suppliers and complementary businesses. If you write well, consider adding a blog and writing content articles to post on both your website and article database sites. On your site, the articles will count as separate pages (blogs, too) and posting your articles elsewhere, with a link to your business site in your byline will increase your links back.
There are other, more detailed SEO methods as well, which will be discussed in later postings. For now, get your website launched as soon as possible, even if you have a “Coming Soon” page for now, and begin developing ideas for getting your site ranked on the search engines as quickly as possible. Even if you do everything right, expect it to take some time to show up on the search engines. For key words with a lot of competition, like “startup” or “cars”, it can take at least a couple of months to be ranked high enough in the search engines to matter, and a year or more to get and stay in the top 5. Be patient, plan ahead, and keep plugging away a few hours per week on SEO methods…your business will get there and all of your hard work will pay off.
Start here. Go far. LaunchX.com
Many first-time entrepreneurs are hesitant to talk to others, even their friends and family, about their ideas for starting a business. For some, they don’t want to talk about it until they have it moving, thinking they will be embarrassed if it never gets off the ground. For others, they are afraid that someone else will steal their idea before they have a chance to get it off the ground. Still others just don’t want to hear all the naysayers tell them why it won’t work. While these are all valid concerns to some degree, the advantages of communicating your plans far outweigh the potential for negative outcomes.
Talking to others about your business idea allows you to develop the picture of how your business will run. You will find that most people are impressed with your “tolerance for risk” and are interested in what and how you plan to launch your own business. Many will ask you questions about your plans, which will help you identify aspects of your idea that have not been worked through. Others will offer advice from their own small business experience or stories of other business owners they know. Some will know more about the type of business you plan to start than you expect and will provide useful information and advice to consider. Most people like to share what they know, and by opening up about your business idea, you might be surprised at the knowledge and experience the people around you have that might be very beneficial in your startup.
Most people will have an opinion to offer, and some of these will likely prove to be very helpful. Even the most negative responses should be considered on their merit, as sometimes the comments that seem the least helpful can provide profound insight into an area you have not yet considered. For example, an independent carpet cleaner was talking about expanding to hard floor services when the resident naysayer blurted out “I don’t know why anyone wastes money on professional carpet cleaning! The kids just drag in half the yard to the floors by the next day anyway!” This seemingly unhelpful statement inspired the entrepreneur to add a line of retail products to his service business including high absorbency door mats and spot cleaning solutions to use between cleanings. Ultimately, those retail products became over 20% of sales! Listen to everything people have to say about your idea, startups in general, and even your local area or market.
The ultimate good fortune in talking to others about your business idea while you are developing your plan is to find someone who is interested in investing. You might be surprised at who is interested in your business idea and willing to help you out in your venture. Most businesses are started with the owner’s own funds or loans from friends and family, not from formal investors or banks. If you will need startup capital, keeping potential investors informed about your planning process is a good idea.
If you are thinking about taking the plunge into entrepreneurship, start talking about your idea now. Let people know what you are thinking about, and allow them to offer their two cents. You just never know who might provide the one piece of information that is the catalyst for actually getting your business off the ground.
Start here. Go far. LaunchX.com
Congratulations! You have eliminated all the usual excuses for not getting started on your new business…..now what? Figuring out where to start in developing your business idea is a major stumbling block for most first-time entrepreneurs. The available advice is all over the place and often lists “business requirements” without telling you how, when, or why to do them. Simply registering your business and posting a website is not enough, and the available fill-in-the-blank business plan templates do not tell you how to dig into the details of your startup or what you should be looking for.
For every business idea, the first order of business is to actually plan your business. Merely writing down your business idea and throwing together unjustified numbers for projected financials is not a plan. Rather, you need to thoroughly define your product, identify your target market and how to reach them, determine all legal requirements, and develop solid, justifiable financial projections before you can decide whether your business idea is viable. In addition, you need to develop a complete marketing plan, from the role, design, and SEO of your website (yes, your business must have a website!) to the best routes for reaching your market through paid advertising to the role of networking in developing your business.
Quite a bit of effort goes in to a well-developed plan, but the experience will leave you completely prepared for managing your business once it is up, running, and making money. Your well-developed plan will provide you a roadmap for where your business is going and how to get there. In addition, if you will need outside investment to launch your startup, all of this research will easily develop into your formal business plan and will clearly show that you have done your homework and know your business inside and out.
With your completed plan, you will know whether you can finance the startup yourself or will need outside investment. If you can fund it yourself, the next steps are to execute the plan and open for business! Then, your responsibilities shift to the actual operations, managing employees, overseeing the financials, and planning for growth.
There is a lot to starting your own business, but the independence and flexibility that comes with entrepreneurship is well worth the effort. The process is not as complex as it seems, and the keys to success are easy to remember – Planning, Marketing and Financial Management. If you begin your business with these factors in mind, you will greatly reduce your risk and greatly increase your odds of success.
The LaunchX System is the only complete startup program on the market and includes everything you need to take your business idea through startup to a successful company. The program is designed to address every startup stumbling block entrepreneurs experience as well as the tools every small business needs to grow and succeed. The tools included in the LaunchX System are there to help you minimize your risk and decrease the time it takes to get your business off the ground. If you are serious about turning your business idea into a successful company, check out the LaunchX System.
Start here. Go far. LaunchX.com
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