Tip for April 1, 2006

The top five logos, based upon a study of corporate identity: Motorola, Buick, U.S. West, Mercury, Cadillac. The bottom five logos: Continental Insurance, Oldsmobile, British Airways, Minolta, Infiniti.

Tip for April 2, 2006

Use word-of-mouth marketing Word-of-mouth marketing is cheap and highly effective, and e-mail can be forwarded with a click of a mouse on the Net. If you're offering something of value, each person who sees your message may pass it on to half a dozen or more friends. Help this process along by specifically asking your readers to pass your information on if they find it useful. At the end of your electronic sales letters or brochures, simply ask readers to forward the information to others who may find it useful. You'll be surprised how far messages can travel this way.

Tip for April 3, 2006

The initial objective of your sales call. . . . . . is to get the prospect talking. It is an accepted fact that people, particularly salespeople love to hear themselves talk. Too much talking kills more sales than if a salesperson sat like a mummy and simply nodded "yes" as the prospect talked. Other than you name and your company's name, the initial and continuing process of the sales interview is open ended questioning, active listening and paraphrasing the prospects answers to verify what the prospect means by what he/she is saying. Listen twice as much as you speak

Tip for April 4, 2006

Goals of one-on-one marketing: 1) A small, select customer list 2) Trusting relationships 3) New information to help your prospect 4) Sales generated through service 5) Providing unexpected values.

Tip for April 5, 2006

Testimonials add personality to advertising It's fine for you to tell people your product is great, but it's much better when actual customers verify your statements. Ask customers for their comments about your product or service, and when you get a good comment, ask for permission to use it in your marketing material, and then include it in your brochure, classified ad, web site, or other online marketing information. Select specific portions of customer comments to appeal to the broadest audience, or to pitch the widest array of products or services you offer. Testimonials back up your claims and help make the sale.

Tip for April 6, 2006

Guerrilla Thomas Kan got his Hong Kong internet marketing firm off to a quick start with advertising specialties. He sent out 3,000 promotional mouse pads just as he launched his company. Now he's getting lot's of calls. The promotion worked because of three things: the mousepads all had a phone number, he gave his pads away early and before most were thinking about the internet, and they were interesting enough to keep on a desk. If you think it might work for you and would like find some suppliers, check out our Vendors and Resources Directory for suppliers.

Tip for April 7, 2006

Guerrillas and Creative Waiting Everyone is forced to wait at some point. It may be a doctor's waiting room, in line at airport security, a line at the Post Office, or at a restaurant waiting for a friend to show up. Guerrillas excel at taking full advantage of waiting time. They bring both old-fashioned tools--paper and pens--as well as new technology like microrecorders and wireless laptops, to review tasks and capture their ideas while waiting. Creative Waiting is one of the most important tools you can utilize to achieve Ninety-Minute Hour productivity.

Tip for April 8, 2006

If You Got It, Flaunt It! Whenever you come across tangible expressions of your commitment or success, don't keep them a secret--share them with your clients or prospects. Will Reed, www.gmarketing-genius.com and www.b-smart.net, just reached a milestone--he's entering the second year of publishing his monthly newsletters. Rather than keep it a secret, Will very properly announced the achievement of 48 issues of two newsletters--two newsletters, English and Japanese versions of each--in the covering letter announcing his latest issue. In itself, not a big thing, except insofar as it reinforces Will's professionalism and commitment which will make him a bit more desirable and memorable to clients and prospects.

Tip for April 9, 2006

Airlines Suggest Alternatives--Do You? On several airline web sites, the site will suggest adjacent, alternative cities which offer scheduling and pricing options. Often, the mileage from the original airport to the suggested alternative is shown, so you can see that driving 80 miles, for example, will save you $199 in round trip savings. Do you offer alternatives to accommodate prospects who tell you they are interested in your product or service, but are not comfortable with one, or more, aspects of your offering. Do you offer less-expensive, or "Lite," versions of your full program for those seeking a less expensive alternative?

Tip for April 10, 2006

Thinking from the Prospects Perspective When you visit the web sites of some airlines, you're expected to know the airport code for your departure and arrival cities, i.e., SFO for San Francisco International Airport, or ORD for O'hare Airport in Chicago. Often, you have to go to a different screen to locate the necessary airport code. On other sites, however, they either offer a pulldown menu of city choices, or will let you simply enter the name of the city. What's your equivalent of "ORD" and "SFO?" On your web site, and throughout all of your marketing communications, do you speak your prospect's language, or do you speak in "code?"

Tip for April 11, 2006

Web site color reference Color presents a lot of web site design challenges. Problems involving color often fall into two categories: use of a black, plus a single color through a web site of too many different colors. When black plus a single color is used, in an attempt to "brand" the site, shades of the original color are often used to organize the site's contents. Unfortunately, many colors lose their impact when shaded (i.e., presented at less than 100% saturation). Use too many colors, and your web site will present a visually cluttered, "circus" atmosphere and many of the colors will "fight" each other. To avoid these problems, pick up a copy of Rockport Press's Color Harmony for the Web, by Cailin Boyle. Color Harmony for the Web displays hundreds of color groupings, organized by image, complete with the RGB values needed to create them.

Tip for April 12, 2006

When people request and receive more information, what happens? 59% file the information for future reference; 20% buy the product or service; 12% pass the information along to others; 9% buy a competitive product.

Tip for April 13, 2006

Holiday greetings keep you in touch Sending out holiday greetings to existing customers via e-mail is a great way to keep in touch. While you're extending your felicitations, you can also update customers on new developments at your company. E-mail is free, and nobody dislikes getting a holiday card, so don't let a holiday pass by without taking the chance to renew your contacts with customers.

Tip for April 14, 2006

How to regain control of a sales situation. Control the sales interview by using who, what, how, why, when - probing questions and listen! You can always regain control of the sales interview from the prospect who has gotten off the track by asking a probing question. Information is you ally! By probing and active listening, you gain the involvement of your prospect, you give the prospect ownership in the sales situation. You and the prospect become co-consultants, working together to best satisfy the prospect's needs

Tip for April 15, 2006

Unique guerrilla marketing weapon: a postcard newsletter which lets you keep in touch with customers while keeping the costs of follow up way down.

Tip for April 16, 2006

Don't send e-mail to people who don't care Mass mailings are easy on the Net, and a lot of non-guerrilla marketers figure it's fine to get a tiny response to a mass e-mailing. But guerrillas know better. They know that annoying 1000 customers to make one sale is bad business, and many people are annoyed by unsolicited e-mail on the Net. It's far better to build a qualified e-mail list from customers, people who have queried you about your business, or correspondents from discussion groups than it is to mail to people you don't know. With a qualified mailing list, you'll know your message is going to people who are really interested in receiving it.

Tip for April 17, 2006

Sales presentations can be deadly. The next time you sit down with a prospect, remember the word - interview. The words sales presentation should be stricken from the sales vocabulary. If you approach each sales situation as a sales interview, you will gather the facts necessary to intelligently uncover the needs of the prospect and thereafter how he/she will benefit by using your services. In a sales situation interview, don't make a presentation

Tip for April 18, 2006

Marketing to a large corporation If you are trying to attract business with a large corporation, it helps to have friends in low places. Market to the people who will use your product, not to the president or CEO. You should target department heads or supervisors.

Tip for April 19, 2006

Search three ways When searching for information on the Net, don't conduct just one search and then assume you've found all there is to find on a subject. Instead, search three ways: * by keywords or phrases that specifically describe the object of your search (such as "business loans"); * by keywords that describe a category of information (such as "financial" or "banking"); and * by the names of major companies or institutions that are involved with the subject of your search (such as "Chase Manhattan Bank").

Tip for April 20, 2006

Why the prospect is NOT looking for top performing technology. The prospect's buying motive is never the desire to use your products, but to gain the service your products will provide. Your company's prospects don't want great products that will give them better overall performance. Heresy! Not at all. What your prospects want is to avoid the loss in time, money or peace of mind that would result if your products were not top performers. The prospect will buy only if it is to his/ her self interest

Tip for April 21, 2006

Using a Bonus to Increase Sales, Part 1 of 6 Sports Illustrated has been using a bonus to attract subscribers. Here's the deal: you subscribe to Sports Illustrated for a year, and you get a free bonus video entitled: "Cure Your Slice Now!" The first thing to notice is that the radio campaign emphasizes the bonus, not the "product" itself, i.e., the 12 monthly issues of Sports Illustrated. When you hear the ad, it's as if the 12 monthly issues were the bonus, and the video was the product itself. The lesson? Perhaps you should reexamine your product and service offerings, and experiment with switching the status of your "products" and "bonuses."

Tip for April 22, 2006

Using a Bonus to Increase Sales, Part 2 of 6 The title of Sports Illustrated's bonus video is: "Cure Your Slice Now." Examine the video's title. It begins with the imperative, or command, word: "Cure." This emphasizes the fact that you will benefit from taking the action. Next, notice the "you." "You" always attracts the reader's interest, as it speaks directly to them. "Slice" is a common frustration among golfers. "Now" emphasizes immediacy, a quick cure. Four carefully chosen words combine to create one very powerful title.

Tip for April 23, 2006

Using a Bonus to Increase Sales, Part 3 of 6 To add impact to the "Cure Your Slice Now!" title of Sports Illustrated's subscription bonus offer, they added an exclamation point at the end of the title. Although exclamation points are the most frequently overused punctuation marks, in this case the punctuation mark adds impact to the immediacy of the offer, summed up in the last word of the title, i.e., "Now."

Tip for April 24, 2006

Using a Bonus to Increase Sales, Part 4 of 6 Returning to the use of the word, "Slice," in the title of the Sports Illustrated bonus, it's worth emphasizing that "slice" immediately resonates among golfers because it is a problem shared by most amateur, and advanced amateur, golfers. It's also a shorter, more visual word, than "putting," which may be a near runner-up in terms of frustration, but is a longer word and not as dramatically colorful as a word which brings to mind the embarrassment of golf balls lost in the woods--or ending up on different fairways. Months of market research probably preceded the use of a single four-letter word. Lesson: What's your market's number one frustration? Can it be summer up in one colorful word?

Tip for April 25, 2006

Using a Bonus to Increase Sales, Part 5 of 6 Note that the Sports Illustrated subscription bonus is a video, used to increase sales of a printed magazine. Basically, "new technology" is being used to sell an "old technology, paper-based" product. Lesson: are there ways you could harness new technology, i.e., MP-3 audio downloads, PDF files, web-based presentations, as a tool to sell your "older technology" products or services?

Tip for April 26, 2006

Using a Bonus to Increase Sales, Part 6 of 6 The final lesson involves avoiding an upfront investment in bonus inventory. Because the Sports Illustrated bonus is a video, and it's relatively inexpensive to print and mail an additional copy of a magazine, the economics of the Sports Illustrated promotion are very cost effective. By using a video as a bonus, which can be "duplicated on demand," in contrast to printing thousands of copies of a bonus book and hoping demand will materialize, Sports Illustrated is protected from a heavy investment in a bonus which doesn't generate great demand.

Tip for April 27, 2006

Using a Bonus to Increase Sales, Bonus Point Sports Illustrated "Cure Your Slice Now!" subscription bonus was announced on the radio. This indicates the campaign may not have been paid for--in the sense of "buying some ads," but the station may be reimbursed on a "per inquiry" basis--i.e. the radio station is paid a portion of the direct sales generated by the ads. If the ads sell a lot, Sports Illustrated pays a lot. But, if the ads don't sell, Sports Illustrated doesn't pay--or pays only a portion of the ads "list price." As a result, Sports Illustrated avoids expensive commitment. The lesson, of course, is: "How can you apply the "per inquiry" sales model to your products and services?

Tip for April 28, 2006

The price shopper is usually between 2% and 20% of a company's customer base. Mobil Oil recently completed a test that showed a site can increase revenue 25% simply by offering superior service and charging for it. Moral: price competition is the antithesis of marketing if it's the sole lever in the relationship.

Tip for April 29, 2006

Mine discussion group archives If you've found a discussion group that suits your marketing purposes, locate the group's archives and search through old messages there. These searches may reveal questions about your line of business that you can answer; comments about your competition; or topics of discussion that suit your marketing purposes perfectly and which can be revived with a slightly different slant. Not all discussion groups maintain archives of old messages, but if yours does, a look through it can give you lots of valuable information.

Tip for April 30, 2006

When Guerrilla Ann Douglas wanted the attention of a prospective agent, she had a local chocolate store make up a large chocolate "YES" and she sent it along with a note that said, "I hate to put words in your mouth, but I want you to say 'yes' to representing my work...." If her proposal is as good as the pitch, we should see her on the shelves soon!